Mahtin's Blog

Triple redundancy

2009-01-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I learned how to change the hydraulic fluid on Herman's tractor. It was of course a learning experience- I still haven't made it to the laundromat to try to get the oil out of the clothes that I was wearing. :/

We went to Cathaus for a lovely Ethiopian dinner with old friends last night. It was lovely.

I still have nasty chronic foot pain and I still look forward to starting or moving to a farm.

I'm on facebook now...

I'm still here...

2008-01-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

I'm still here. I happen to be stealing nap time to write this post at the moment. I often write blog posts in my head while I'm biking or driving, but I never get around to posting them, and they are lost...

I got a car a few months ago. It sucks that even I have one now, but just like everyone else says about their car, "I need it!" I still have my job, although tomorrow will be my 4th day in a row out sick with the flu. As I often say, "So much for that flu shot!" I did get one in November, right before we went to New Mexico for Thanksgiving. Have you ever had altitude sickness? God, it's brutal! But I felt really good at the gym the next week!

It's funny that I was writing about recessions and inflation last year, and look, they are still proceeding apace. It's scary. I'm not sure if I should buy things that could be necessities in the future, or try to save money in case I can save enough to buy something really big and useful. Well, there are some big things that my new health insurance doesn't cover, so they are going to eat up a lot of cash...

I'm reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and Mycelium Running by Paul Stametz. My complaint about MP's latest is that his language is too flowery to be accessible to joe-no-college-education. But he's still great. You should really read The Omnivore's Dilemma. I lent it to the kids at the farm and I think I will just need to buy a used copy when I need to refer back to it. :/

I've been trying to visit the farm a lot when time and health allow, but they don't allow much. I'm not even going to go to the Defend Roe v. Wade march this weekend, but I hope you will!

I heard we might be having a recession

2007-09-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

Today on NPR, I heard a report that "Many financial analysts had said they believed August would show about 110,000 new jobs. Instead, the number dipped for the first time since August 2003." That's a lot of jobs- in fact, the number of jobs in this country shrank by 4,000.

Even Good Vibes is having a hard time!

This is kind of scary to me, because so few of us, even of those who might want to live sustainably, have the financial, material, and time resources to be able to do so.

Some of the patients who come into my work literally eat like a can of beans for their meals. It sounds

Ah, the wonderful world of work

2007-06-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time logging into blogspot for a few weeks there, but I'm back!

When I got to work today, the Terminix guy was there, spraying unknown pesticide(s) in the building. There was an unfamiliar musty odor in the building that I assume was related to the pesticide(s) that he was using. I turned around and walked out of the building. The guy who had been applying the pesticide(s) didn't know or didn't want to tell me what he was spraying. Apparently, he was doing a "preventative" spraying for ants. He was not wearing any protective gear, but somehow this did not reassure me. He even pointed out some ants to the security guard outside of the building-- there were some on one of the trees outside of the building!! (apparently this is because he did not spray outside) Since I don't know what he sprayed, or how long it stays in the air, or how long it has been in use, or what its potential effects on the human body (particularly mine) can be, I went home. As far as I could tell, nothing was being done to air-out the building (ie, the door was not being kept open).

Our CEO called to tell me that noone smelled anything "off," and that if I left him high and dry like this, it would be counted as an "unexcused absence." (too bad we don't get sick days or personal days, since maybe I could have finagled my way into one) Since I already expose my body to more environmental pollutants and other irritants than what I would be comfortable with, I do not want to be exposed to a potentially very toxic chemical today (or exposing our patients to said chemicals). What sucks is that I was supposed to get a ride to work with someone who starts earlier than I do. If that had worked out, we would have been able to send that guy packing before he sprayed. Either that or I would have had to walk to BART or the bus! Anyhow, I hope they got someone whose body is less chemically sensitive than mine to come in and help them. I'm just not sure who that would be.

Speaking of staffing, the guy who had gotten the double-promotion got half-demoted a few weeks ago, so he is just the boss of my work area. He and I work together on 2 days. It sucks. I think it would go better if he were to work on the hardest day of the week, since the person doing his job when he's not in is not as experienced as he is, and I often have to fill in for her, which causes me yet more stress on the crazy-busy days. The woman who had gotten promoted got an even higher promotion (CEO's assistant with a really long title), and two women of color got promotions. So that's a bit better. We still need the anti-oppression training that I requested in December or January.

East Bay Pesticide Alert quotes the Pesticide Education Center:

There is abundant evidence of the risk toxic pesticides pose to human health. The most vulnerable populations are children, the developing fetus, the elderly, the ill and immunocompromised, and those with asthma, allergies, and other medical conditions. Most worrisome from a public health perspective are chronic health effects such as cancer, infertility, miscarriage, birth defects, and effects on the brain and nervous system. The PEC has more info at http://www.pesticides.org/educmaterials.html

Update on the c-word saga

2007-04-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

Guess who got a promotion? Not me, but the person who left me that lovely message. He is now a manager on the weekends, and the woman who had been doing the same job as him on weekdends is now also a manager over me, but one step down. He must have gotten a huge raise (like, $4-6 per hour).

That is so fucked up. In what way is what he did any sign of leadership?! Ugh, and I hate it when people come up to you and say, "Could you do this for me?" Oh, and the other thing, our department consists of two people at a time, plus one lunch person who floats between two departments. So really, as manager, they are my direct boss, and again, there are only two of us. Remember my previous critique that there were too many managers? Well, now there are two more, but this time, one is a woman.

What is it that a manager over me would be able to make me do? And how should/will I respond to this? (I'm currently out sick)

Ugh, bikes

2007-03-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I had a little bike accident this evening. I was carrying a big Ross plastic bag, and I guess it got caught in the front wheel. I flew up onto the sidewalk and fell over sideways once or twice. Dammit! I am all bruised up, both wrists are somewhat sprained, and my neck may or may not be fucked. And I am really mad. Especially since I can't tell what kind of damage the bike suffered. And I had left the bike shop a mere 3 hours before, after getting 2 spokes in the rear wheel replaced. When I came to get the bike, the dude was like, if other spokes loosen up, you probably want to get a new wheel. Why didn't he just give me a new wheel? The bike still felt funny before the accident. And now, I think one or more derailleur is messed up (the chain had come off), plus who knows what else, since it often takes a few miles for damage to show.

This thing of the spokes getting loose makes me mad. Yes, I ride on rough terrain,b ut people kick and bump into my wheels on BART all the time, so who's to say that the bike didn't get damaged from that?

I know what you're going to say- Don't you have any panniers (saddle bags)? Well, the bike was getting fixed when I was in the "new" store, so I couldn't even look at panniers without my actual bike rack present. I once bought brand-new panniers, and because they didn't match the fucking bike rack that they had to be hooked to, they fell off all the time. One got run over by a Muni bus. And I can never find the right size of bungee cord for this bike, either.

I am so over biking. And so lucky, cuz the accident happened on Milvia and I didn't get run over by any of the rogue drivers.

For Pete's Sake

2007-01-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

My awesome friend Pete Morse died this morning. He was such a great guy. He was a dj (I loved his music), a harm reduction activist, an anarchist... I feel so bad for his partner, Liz. She got a phone call in the middle of the night and had to get a ride to the hospital to see his body.

A bunch of us drove together to LA for this anarchist conference 5 or 6 years ago. While we were there, Monica and I went swimming, or at least I did. Pete took this picture of us: http://home.earthlink.net/~karencita/photos/pacificwomen.jpg

She told me that he had finished his dissertation, finally.

It's weird to google his name and find so little of him out there, but I guess he was more of an in-person kind of person...

"Karen Kunt"

2007-01-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, those who know me might agree, I'm sometimes a bit of a c-word. But- would you call me one AT WORK?

When I came back from lunch, I filled in for a coworker while he took his break. For the most part, I used his computer during that time. When I went back to my computer, I noticed that the search bar up at the top right of the web browser says "Karen kunt."

From what I wrote to my bosses: As you know, the "c" word is one of the most offensive things that a woman can be called. It's not the kind of thing that I take lightly. There have been a lot of sexist things that have happened here, but this is the most blunt thing that has happened to me, and I'm glad to finally have something concrete that I can show you. Except that I can't seem to get a screenshot/screen capture of it... (?) Well, I will try to not close the browser when I leave tonight, and we'll see if someone else closes it overnight.

I'd appreciate hearing what kind of action you will take on this matter. Thank you.

Loved Ones Always Die During the Holidays

2006-12-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

People in my family tend to die around the holidays. As far as I know, this year, the only loved one of mine to die around now is James Brown. I can't believe he's gone.

I saw James Brown when I was in college, at I think the Colonial Theater in Boston (is that what it's called?). I was literally like a half mile away from him. I was like, "Is that speck down there James Brown?" But it was still a great show, and I'm really glad that I went. (I went by myself, since I rarely have friends who share my taste in music)

Here's a quote from him: "We need (people) to come forward to save our country and our kids. I could care less about the record. If you say you're already into that, you can throw the record away. But we've got to save these children. That's what's important"

He also said, "I would like to pass on the want to do something. The need is there. Good lyrics are good things, but I would like to pass on that drive, that invigorous undying determination."

Those quotes came from The Godfather of Soul website

Props where props is due

2006-12-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to Sunday Salon on KPFA. They are broadcasting from the KPFA Crafts and Music Fair. Larry Bensky is interviewing this guy from the First Amendment Project about Josh Wolf's case. The guy is using terms like "self-published" to talk about how Josh first got the info out about his case. Well, guess what? He first self-published to Indybay.org first, and my understanding is that this was how the corporate media that bought some of his footage had found him.

We at Indybay are so bad about doing outreach and networking- we should be there this weekend. Doh! It's just not the same to send an email to someone to be like, "HEY! Don't forget Indybay!"

Shockingly, when you google Josh Wolf, Indybay only shows up 5th - usually we are a bit higher. The first three sites listed in the results are Josh's site and the wiki that his supporters maintain. 4th is SF Gate, the SF Chronicle. But, like, considering all the coverage of him all over the world, 5th is pretty good, no?

Weird dream

2006-11-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

I had a weird dream when I was taking a nap this evening. My feet were really cold, so I think it kind of kept me from sleeping right. I remember dreaming that I was chatting on the computer with my friend Bradley. I also dreamed I was in bed, still living with my mother and my sis (tho my dad always lived there when i lived there, so that's a bit off)... and I was calling my mother to come into my room, like "Ma! Ma! MA! MA!" kind of like when i am trying to talk to z from my room when he is in any other room in the house. When I told z about it, he was like, that's from a recent Saturday Night Live skit (which it partly is- it's these really white trash guys with a Boston-type accent calling their mother from halfway across Disney World or something). I think it's also from this "Family Guy" episode where Stewie, kept trying to get his mother's attention in the one episode where he liked her. Digging deeper... When I had my wisdom teeth out, there was this time when I had to get up to pee and needed my mother's help to get to the bathroom cuz I was on lots of drugs, and I kept calling her and she never came and I got up and fell over, so that's probably what that was about. Good thing I was in her room, since my room was kind of smaller than the one I have now. And I always had a pile of clothes that I would move back and forth between a chair, my bed, and the floor. Sigh.

Wear Black, and all that

2006-10-22T23:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's another October 22nd (national day of protest to stop police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation). Every time I help out with it, the months leading up to it are worse and worse hell for me.

I got only 4 hours of sleep on Thursday night because I was entering Stolen Lives names into the database (on deadline). Friday was a long workday, and then of course I couldn't sleep again that night. Insomnia was my close friend this week. Yesterday I had to work a half day (cleaning) and then I got to take a nap. I had the worst nightmare, but it woke me up at just the right time. I dreamed that there was this guy who was kind of stalking me. We were at a pool, and I was kind of trapped in the pool area. The pool was sort of a combo of Bentley (the lighting) and some other pool i swam in somewhere. When Tina Fey came through a door with some NBC crew, I went running for that door. I grabbed her and hugged her and was crying really hard. When I woke up, I kind of couldn't breathe very well. I guess the asthma must have been stressing me out in my sleep. But what an awful feeling, having a dream like that, huh?

So I went for the computer and checked my email. This one person who has been one of the main 3 people working on this protest had sent an email. What I consider to be a very bad email. She had emailed a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of other people's phone numbers. She insists after the fact that there weren't any numbers on there from people who didn't want their numbers public, but i don't believe it. She should have said, "Emergency: Need Someone to Make These Phone Calls" and then, in the email, explained the situation, and asked forsomeone to call or email her to tell her that they could do it- then she could have sent the list to one person and asked them to keep it confidential.

report from the protest later.

What is the deal with KPFA?!

2006-10-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

As an editor at indybay, i am privileged to get to wade thru the comments to the site as they come in. There is like a full-on war amongst and against candidates for KPFA's local station board. They are calling one woman "thin-skinned" and things like that, and they are posting supposed internal documents and stuff about other people. It is so bad.

If that's not co-intelpro, i don't know what is. Or, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Either way, it's really embarassing. I'm glad i don't have money to be able to be a member of the station. I'm also not into the "democracy" thing that supposedly runs the station. It obviously doesn't work and I don't want any part of it.

They are in the middle of a fundraising drive, and there have been some public scandals in the activist community, as well: KPFA wasn't planning on broadcasting any of the Black Panther Party 40th Reunion, which will take place in Oakland this weekend. They finally made room for it to be broadcast on Saturday afternoon, from 2-6. I emailed the Commemoration folks (like a day late) and asked if October 22nd could have a table. They didn't write back. :/

Bra Revolution

2006-09-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you just finished watching something on tape, and you flip thru the channels and come across Oprah, and it's a show about getting women into the right bra?

Apparently of the women who she got measured and outfitted, 94% were in the wrong size.

It is so funny to see Oprah touching women's boobs.

Apparently later in the show they are going to do jeans, which is funny cuz Oprah's booty is in the wrong jeans. She looks like she hasn't been doing her weights.

I love this 34H lady's hair. Anyhow, just thought you might find that funny.

Attraction

2006-09-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching this episode of Will & Grace where Will gets Grace a maid, and then the maid becomes intrinsic to her creative process. The maid is played by Wendie Jo Sperber. The first few times I saw the episode, I was intrigued by this woman. This is the first time I've ever looked her up-- she was in this episode in 1999. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998. She was in remission for a while and then around 2002, I guess, she got really sick, and died last year. How sad. She was hot, tho.

It got me thinking about attraction, and how you can be into someone right from the first time you see them, even when you don't know them at all... like that pheromone thing, when you meet someone and hit it off... Like, how did me and Zak get together, you know? Or some of my great crushes/attractions that I have and have had besides him...

Ugh, big job tomorrow, I guess... Hopefully I'll get to go swimming tomorrow- i haven't gone in a long, long time.

Yet another night when I didn't go to bed early.

Found this article on the web

2006-09-08T00:15:00.000-07:00

Urban Exercise Has Its Hazards

August 26, 2006 08:41:10 PM PST
Yahoo! Health: Allergy News

SATURDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Your intentions may be good, but exercising outdoors in a city may be riskier than you think, one expert says.

Outdoor activity can cause serious damage to a person's health because of elevated air pollution levels. Those especially at risk are those who exercise by running, bicycling or skating.

According to Dr. Joseph T. Cooke, associate professor of clinical medicine and patient safety officer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the danger lies in the components of air pollution. The three main culprits are fine particulate matter, (the mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air), ozone (a gas composed of three oxygen atoms) and carbon monoxide.

These components of air pollution irritate the lungs, making it harder to breathe and worsening problems initially caused by asthma, bronchitis, cardiopulmonary maladies, and emphysema.

"The pollutants affect the lungs by causing inflammation or irritation of the airway lining," Cooke explained in a prepared statement. "More mucus and phlegm is produced, and small muscles surrounding the airway respond by squeezing down. The work of breathing increases, and it becomes more difficult to get oxygen into the body," he said.

The three pollutants are located in cities around the world. Fine particulates are emitted from the diesel engines of buses and trucks. Carbon monoxide arises from cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust, and it has the ability to force oxygen out of a person's circulatory system.

For those exercising, overexposure to carbon monoxide can lead to dizziness, confusion, headaches and dangerously high body temperatures. Ozone, which is the largest component of smog in cities, adversely affects breathing patterns and decreases the size of airways, making the lungs more resistant to oxygen.

For those determined to work out outdoors, Cooke offered the following tips:

* Do not run on or near roads where there is heavy truck or bus traffic.
* Work out in the early morning or later in the evening.
* Exercise indoors if possible.
* If you experience any difficulty breathing, stop exercising immediately and see a doctor.

More information

For more on air pollution, visit The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Had a short visit to the farm

2006-08-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

I was at the farm for 2 days and nights this week. I helped with some harvesting- of things like onions, and of things like tomatoes and squash. I got to see a hornworm, something I'd like to never repeat (ugh!) and throw out tons of tomatoes that had blossom end rot. They have a lot of food harvested and that they are storing in Herman's storage container. Apparently that container was sold, so they will have to move all of that stuff into a new (rental, again, I guess) container. This wouldn't have to happen if the steel building had been erected when they bought it. But Shelley overspent and didn't have money for its foundation or erection.

Chris's dad stopped in for a visit and a tour with his dad's brother in law and his partner. It's interesting to see what mannerisms come from his dad.

I slept SO good the last night- I took melatonin and I properly used an earplug on the right side for sleeping. I was still really tired that night, and today, but that could be due to whatever stomach bug it is I get every time I go there (I think it's from the water from the tap in the trailer). I took a sponge bath for the first time in ... probably ever.

I guess they are planning to set up a CSA with 10 customers, I think that's including a box or two for them and the parents. I only caught a little bit of the discussion about how much of which things Herman had calculated need to be planted. On Thursday, Chris was setting up the tables and stuff in their new greenhouse so Shelley could start some seeds. It's definitely cool enough to do that now. The weather was gorgeous. The wind was pretty strong on Weds. PM, and the north wind came up on Thursday, but was not hot.

Herman was doing the alfalfa irrigation again. Apparently the stuff that's been harvested and baled already this season has been sold, so they (not sure if the money goes to Herman or to Shelley, and apparently he's not 100% sure either-- danger! danger!) might see some money from it. I have a hard time helping him, because I sink into the mud so quickly and my boots or sandals threaten that the only way I can take my foot out is if I leave the shoe behind. Then all my energy is focused on this foot struggle, instead of whatever carrying of pipes I'm supposed to be doing.

I miss getting to work with plants and stuff. And compost.

I will post photos soon. Well, one is up on themahtin.com. It's a picture of the house, which at some point will start to consume all of Chris and Shelley's time for the rest of their lives (once they move in, I guess). They just have to get a loan to finish the foundation and the septic system and whatever else.

(untitled)

2006-08-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

So...It's been a month since I was last at the farm, I think. Chris was sick, really, sick, this month. He had West Nile (2nd case in his county) and meningitis. He was admitted to the hospital on the day they figured out about the meningitis, and his fever went right down, thankfully. But man, it took a long time for him to get any help. And he didn't have a phone, and Shelley's phone ran out of minutes during that time, so there was no way to get the latest news about him-- until he was in the hospital and had a phone there.

There was a crazy heat wave in July-- on one day, it was 103 outside and Chris's temperature was 104. Jeez.

Herman said that the beans are dying, because there is too much boron in the water (corrected this from soil to water). Fava beans and peas can grow ok with the boron, but not things like green beans (aww!) or cow peas (yucky).

Last Sunday Z and I went to bring our compost to the community garden. I ended up staying there for 6 hours, with a brief break for lunch. I worked on the compost. Worked and worked and worked. And I looked at the duckies a lot. Apparently the time I went over and it seemed like there was only 1 duck, the mama must have been sitting on her eggs. Folks say that she hatched 12, and (as of Sunday) 6 survived. Paul brought over a generator and a pump, and we pumped water out of their swimming ponds so we'd be able to give them clean water to swim in and drink. I'm extra-worried about the mosquito question now (well, i always was), but giving them fresh water probably doesn't do much to help with that problem. Those little duckies are so cute!

I gave tours to some people, and I was so negative...I feel bad, but then again, I don't.

Since I hadn't planned on hanging out at the garden for very long, I didn't wear a hat. This was a bad idea. I got probably the worst sunburn of my adult life. I am still peeling.

I'm trying to get a blog at http://www.thepatientsblog.com, but it's hard to get confirmation emails at hotmail accounts these days.

I have a wicked g-i bug. I was really freaked out about germs around the house last night, but who knows where it came from.

I started going to the gym again, i think this has been my 4th week. I started lifting last week, and I've been using the rowing machine a few times a week this whole month. It sucks, cuz every time I don't go for a day, I feel really bad about myself, and I miss the exercise. Don't know if I'll be able to go today! I haven't been swimming at all, partly cuz I am doing cardio (machines) to build up endurance, and partly cuz I don't want to get all used to swimming before they close the lap pool for 3 weeks for renovations. I have such a love/hate relationship with the gym, cuz I always pick up terrible germs there.

My other personal update is that my vacuum is no longer usable, so I am still trying to decide if/how/when to go out of business.

Nationalism is so interesting

2006-08-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

As you may know, if Brandeis had had a major in Cuban Studies, I would have at least qualified for a minor, based on the number of classes related to Cuba that I took.

This thing about Fidel being sick and giving power over to his brother makes me sick. The guy is 80 years old, let him go! And it doesn't make sense to replace him with a 75 year-old. I hate this thing where people sacrifice their bodies for a long-term cause- it just doesn't make sense. Especially when there are tons of other people who could take over as president of cuba. I remember that when I was in Cuba 9 years ago and I asked who would take over when Fidel dies, people said it would be Carlos Lager. I don't know what the hell ever happened to those plans, cuz now people talk about Raul.

Last night I was watching the news on Univision or whatever channel 14 is. It was so disgusting, they would start to say "El Comandante," and then correct themselves to "El Dictador." The reporters were clearly told in advance what language to use when referring to Fidel. There were thousands of people in the streets of Miami last night, celebrating Fidel's incapacitation. A lot of them were my age or younger. They had never been to Cuba, and all they knew about it was what their parents and the right-wing media had told them. They were not very knowledgable about the country or the political situation. Fucking right-wingers.

Today on Talk of the Nation, they mentioned the idea of people reclaiming their property in Cuba. Gross. But it reminds me of the Palestinian question. Can those people go back and take their houses back? In their case, the houses are often razed to the ground, so there is nothing to go back to. But in Cuba, houses were reclaimed for other uses.

I like to look at things this way: a significant portion of the population must have wanted Fidel to stay in office if he managed to do so for so long. And when he dies, they are not going to be able to go back. I still always go by this expression: "You can never go back."

I want to go when he dies. Take pictures, audio, whatever. Ayudar a defender a la patria, even though I don't believe in patrias exactly.

Whatever

2006-07-27T00:19:00.000-07:00

So here I am, in Berkeley. Not a whole lot going on. Just trying to get it together a bit, think about things, and go to the gym a lot.

On Saturday I rode around and picked up shelving units from people. Now I have more bookcases and places to put stuff. It helped to get some of the clothes off the floor in my bedroom. And I needed a place I can reach to put food stuff, cuz Z tends to put stuff way up high where I can't reach it.

A lot of days the only outstanding feature is, "I went to the gym." Kind of sad. Though I do need to go to the gym a lot.

Today I did a new client, a really dirty house, so there was no energy to go to the gym. I wouldn't be typing right now if I hadn't taken some ibuprofen. Plus I missed lunch, got home just before dinner time. The client's house is so big. The bedrooms are all bigger than 15x15. And they are in a quieter part of the neighborhood, near where my house 2 houses ago was. It makes me so angry that some people can have so much unused space, and I have so little space that is funny shaped so it can't even be used. And then there are the people who carry all their worldly possessions around with them...

And this client has a big, sunny area in their yard where the ground is all trashed from the grass being cut and taken away and no fertilizer being put in. Sunny. I could grow some serious food there, were it my house. And it has a taller fence than my shared "yard" does, so people wouldn't be all running through and stealing the veggies or using the garden as a fucking bathroom.

Unbreakable

2006-07-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, hunnybu
nch and I watched "Unbreakable," a 2000 film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Bruce Willis. Shyamalan's films bring you into a world that is similar to our real-life world, with some moments that are sharper than others. Usually the sharpness or clearness indicates that something really weird or scary is about to happen.

This film opened with Bruce Willis's character sitting in a train, with lots of pain and sadness on his face. He tries to pick up a young woman who gets creeped out by his perceived neediness, and then he almost cries. It turns out that his whole adult life has been kind of gray and depressed, because he's not doing what he is supposed to be doing. He has walked away from two different accidents that should have killed him, and he has superpowers. Samuel L. Jackson plays this artsy intellectual who is also a comic book guy who gets injured practically every time he thinks about moving. He discovers Bruce Willis's character and they have an interesting series of interactions.

The movie is really beautiful, and it is neat to see Bruce Willis actually act here and there. The ending, however, is really quite off. He has tested his superpowers, but he ends up going to the police to have the bad guy arrested. Interesting.

One more thing, I found the wife to be utterly uninteresting, which is odd, since when I was a teenager I was totally in love with Robin Wright Penn. Maybe she looks different now? It was also a crappy character, because the movie was about a man, and in part about him and his son, but the woman was really more like a tertiary character.

Don't you hate it when...

2006-07-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you've been up for 3 times as long as you slept?

This was not the best day. I went to bed late (knowing that i had to get up extra early), and had trouble getting to sleep. I was in a tent with two other people, a 16x20 tent that is full of an apartment's worth of stuff. Down the street, I could hear some kind of large farm machines. I could also hear crickets, and the occasional owl. But I knew that it was about to end, and I would be forced back to the city to do some paid work.

I was trying to make the 7:55 train, 15 miles from the farm. Shelley got up at 5:45, so I woke up then, too. I tried to keep sleeping, but it's hard when trucks pull up and people get out and talk and try to run heavy machinery, until they realize that the road is flooded, so they won't be able to work on that property for days. Oops, irrigation boo boo. I found out this morning that my bike is trashed. The frame is broken. Bro-ken. Cracked all the way through. I think it wasn't cracked this bad before i went to the farm, cuz it just felt like the bottom bracket was having issues. I'm so sad, I really loved this bike. Good thing that Chris diagnosed it while the bike was there at the farm.

I guess I got up at 6:45, and was all packed to come back home around 7:15. Minus things like a cellphone charger and Herman, who was supposed to drive me. I tried shouting across the field to him. I tried calling both of his phones (i heard one ring,a nd my guess that the other one was also in the trailer). Shelley was like, put your stuff in my car. But of course we left like 15 or 20 minutes before the train was to leave, and it's a 24 minute drive. We got there 10 minutes late. A train was there, but it looked like the one going in the other direction. I hurried to get my stuff out of the car, without saying goodbye to chris and shelley cuz i thought i'd be seeing them again in a minute. They drove off without even waiting to see if I got on the train. (what the hell? who does that?!)

I called to tell them that my train was long gone, and they told me where i could find a bagel place. I only had to wait an hour and a half for the next train. Can you say anxiety? See, I had to clean someone's house today. And you really have to get there by 12. And the train was gonna get in at 11, and iw asn't sure if i'd be able to ride the 2-3 miles home. Poor me. I went slow and made it home in one piece, and two hours later, i finally left for work. i'm glad that i went and did the whole house and got all of that out of the way, but i feel bad that i finished so late.

On the 4th, i helped herman with some pipe work and diagnosing problems with the sprinklers, after i had weeded for a few hours. Then we went to Cache Creek, the casino. I spent $1 on gambling. At one point I was $15 ahead, but I cashed out at $4.50. Still a pretty good profit margin, but of course i wasn't playing with any kind of big bucks.

It was interesting going there- very diverse, though not so many native americans, african americans, or even latinos that much. the drive to the capay valley is just gorgeous. we passed lots of farm stands, and one was even selling fireworks! i'm pretty sure i have never seen a legal fireworks stand before.

We could see 11 sets of fireworks from the plot. Beat that, AK Press warehouse! well, i haven't checked with daveid to see how many he can see from there.

Some words of wisdom

2006-06-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about growing food is that there is a lot of advice out there, and the more experience you get, the more you respect others' advice and learn to feel confident in your own ability to give advice.

Below are some words of wisdom from the book "Farms of Tomorrow Revisited: Community Supported Farms-Farm Supported Communities." The first few chapters talk about principles of biodynamic agriculture and Three Basic Rules for cooperation to make the family farms of tomorrow happen:

"The farms of tomorrow will not be just family farms. They will... require the cooperation of many different, unrelated, free people..." Rule 2: "Buy for the farm as little as possible from the outside world. The less you purchase in the way of sophisticated tools, machinery and farm buildings (sic), the more you are financially independent and free to work with and out of nature. Use the help and the skills of all friends who are related to the farm.... If you work in cooperation with other people- and that is what the farm of the future is about- you will find that purchasing costly tools, machines, and buildings from outside strains the community; it raises social questions. The initiative to purchase these items usually comes from an individual. The consequences of the purchase have to be carried by the group. This raises problems."

Two spare the air days in a row

2006-06-23T00:54:00.000-07:00

As a bicyclist with asthma, i get irritated in a lot of ways on spare the air days. it's good to have a warning about the days that have the worst air quality, but i can't avoid going out there, and if i have to go anywhere, it's going to be by bike, on foot, or in the bus (cough, cough, when are they going to make diesel burn cleaner?). Or on the train.

The bad air quality isn't helped by the fact that people don't change their behavior on non-spare the air days. I've been hearing a lot of radio shows about global warming and climate change in the last few days, and people are finally starting to state clearly that if people don't change their behavior immediately, there will be IRREVRSIBLE effects on the planet. If it's not too late.

And by the way, i noticed that my block was quite empty this morning- hardly a car in sight, which means that everybody who usually drives somewhere did on this lovely, extra warm Thursday morning. And this is in Berkeley, less than a mile from BART, with a transbay bus stopping on the corner and everything. And, since public transit is free on spare the air days, HOW DO THEY MEASURE INCREASED RIDERSHIP on those days? Just wondering.

You'd think that us asthmatics could get an excuse to drive on those days, or something.

>
>
> Tomorrow, Friday June 23, is another Spare the Air Day in the San
> Francisco
> Bay Area. For the second day in a row, ground-level ozone air pollution is
> forecast to exceed 100 AQI (Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups) tomorrow.
>
> Mañana es un día "Spare the Air." Por favor, maneje su carro lo menos
> posible mañana.
>
> Again -- the Air District, MTC, buses, ferries, and BART are offering FREE
> commutes all day on this second "Spare the Air" weekday! For details, go
> to
> http://www.511.org.
>
> To help prevent smog tomorrow, please:
> - Drive less, bike or walk
> - Take public transit - visit 511.org to plan your trip!
> - Carpool or vanpool
>
> To monitor current air quality conditions, visit
> http://www.sparetheair.org
>
> Thank you for doing your part to Spare the Air!
>
> This AirAlert is provided by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

woo fucking hoo.

Today it started to cool off by 3:30. I had showered and changed into cooler clothes in anticipation of the day getting hotter (guess I'm a bit used to the Davis/Woodland weather now), and boy was I surprised.

Back on the sidelines in Berkeley

2006-06-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I'm trapped in the Bay Area for the week- much work to do. Plus our apartment is falling apart and I am going to try to make it to my two dr's appts that are scheduled. AND Friday is the Trans March and Saturday is the Dyke March. I think I will skip town for Sunday. Unless I meet someone extra special ;)

I just read a post to indybay that Rob los Ricos is getting out of jail in ten days. How awesome is that?

Here's a nice little photo of Herman dealing with leaks in his water tanks. Note the bike trailers under the trailer. They do get some use on the farm. We have to watch out for goathead, which is this really evil weed that basically eats bike tires as an appetizer.

Farewell to the South Central Farm

2006-06-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Chris and I had a great talk about the destruction of the South Central Farm today. The cops raided it early Tuesday morning, arresting farmers and supporters and having the nerve to bulldoze people's crops. There are a bunch of photos online, including on LA Indymedia, of plants, including perennials, that have been uprooted.

Several points that we had:

-When I heard that Julia Butterfly and other celebrities were doing a tree-sit, I said, that's the death knell for this garden. (wonder if they saved that one tree like they did with Luna). I was right about the garden not being saved. Oh god, here is the article about that tree- it IS an endangered, legally protected black walnut tree. The famous folks joined the campaign too late to be able to help.

-We were surprised that perennial plants were still in the ground there. Chris pointed out that people should have gotten those plants out, either in pots in a vacant lot, or distributed to people for their front yards, or even given to friends and family who work as landscapers and gardeners. (this would be what i would call "community organizing")

-It's time to get Food Not Lawns going in that neighborhood to replace the farm. Chris says that people there have decent-sized yards. They could hide the gardens just out in their backyards for safety, even, and be producing food for themselves.

-The best help that the famous folks could have given would have been to have either bought this lot (unlikely, due to the Wal-Mart influence against it), or to have purchased another one for the farmers.

-There were only approximately 40-50 people onhand to get arrested when the farm was raided? There weren't any networks with the people in the community to get people to show up to stop the police from carrying out the takeover (like, if they made phonecalls when the cops arrived)? Chris pointed out that if they had worked with local gangs, there could have been a lot of people out there real quick. I mean, had there been 10,000 people, maybe they could have stopped the cops-- or at least they could have made more of a political statement and felt good about having built up a large community to defend the farm. Instead it sounds like there weren't a lot of people who were invested in this project. (That's not to say that I wasn't in favor of it or whatever, but let's face it-- I've been spending half my time at a farm that is actually OWNED by most of the people who work it)

-Chris had a slightly un-PC comment about how they could use the Annenberg Foundation money to buy some land near Bakersfield or somewhere. It could be twice as much land, and he suggested that they could bus the folks out there to work on the land. He wonders why people would leave a country where they have access to land to come here and not have any. I was trying to defend these folks, talking about the social (and i guess financial) pressures to move to the US...

-Anyhow, another urban garden bites the dust. We talked about how the only smart thing that the ashby garden kids could do would be to buy it. I used to fantasize about like Zak or his parents buying it (back when it was one lot), and then I realized that if I owned it, I'd want to have a lot more say in what goes on there, and I'd probably just put up a fuck-you fence to keep people out, and I'd only let people I wanted to have there in to work on it, and that would just get ugly. Private property is a really gross thing.

Doing lots but missing out

2006-06-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

Indybay rolled out its new code on our brand-new server this weekend. Like any new code, it has a lot of bugs, and it wasn't tested enough before it went live. I feel bad that I'm not around much to help with finding bugs and keeping the regular work going. Also, I have missed out on some rad discussions on Indybay. Apparently someone pointed out that the Pearcys rent out a place in California that they own to Cindy Sheehan for free, and people wanted that comment to be hidden. Rough life, owning a place that you don't live in, and not even needing the income that it would provide if it were rented out. Since Cindy is really the property of the movement (as an icon and as an activist), and since the Pearcys are, too, I think it is really important for that info to be out there.

That's something I really hate about the movement and about society-- that some people have more money than the rest of us. I mean, it's not fair, and it's not right. But you can't correct it, and in fact, it's a faux pas to even mention it.

Today we discovered leaks in the water tanks in Herman's trailer. I guess that things could have been moldier than they are, but it's a real shame that we didn't know about the leaks a long time ago. I've been weeding summer crop beds that have a lot of purslane growing in them. In some spots, it looks like it's the main crop. It's heartbreaking to have to just pull it out of the ground, but we can only eat so much of it!!

I need to go home and deal with some stuff. But I want to stay here and learn more about using the tractor, too...

It felt like a war zone out there today, with airplanes and helicopters going overhead. The airplane was spraying something (pesticide, or herbicide?) on just about every other lot in the neighborhood. Apparently they are not supposed to do that on windy days, but they were doing it anyhow.

Fucking pigs

2006-06-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so here I am trying to watch taped madtv and snl and work on my blogs, and I hear all this yelling outside. Usually the yelling subsides as people walk past, or whatever, but this yelling kept going.

What I saw was two police cars and a woman who was being told that her car was being impounded. What appeared to be her family was diagonally across the street, yelling at the cops and telling people on the phone. Sounded like the cops were saying she had no license or insurance or registration. A cop was trying to explain to her why we have the laws we have or something.

Every single car that drove past was exceeding the speed limit (most just by a bit). This got the traffic to slow down to about 25 miles per hour less than it usually is at this time of night.

Isn't it great to listen to someone's car getting towed when you're trying to get ready for bed?

Sometimes a farmer goes home

2006-06-02T00:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I went back to Berkeley today. It seemed like it was time to see my hunnybunch, and to come home on a day when he was off of work. Also, there was a chance that I'd be having work tomorrow (Fri). Seems unlikely now.

We finally moved the monitor that Heather gave me into my room. Picture is better, but I need a lot more phone books to get it to a healthy height.

I also weeded my front yard for an hour. While I watched "my shows" I finished figuring out how much I earned and spent on my business last year. It's pretty bad.

Check out this nice picture of Chris...

A farmer's work is never done

2006-06-01T01:59:00.000-07:00

Whew, it's been a busy couple of days.

On Monday, we packed up a bunch of wood from the house that Shelley bought and brought it to the dump. The house was made of redwood, so she has been saving a ridiculously large amount of wood. There was also some stuff that just had to be thrown out. This was my first-ever visit to an active landfill. it was so amazing. hopefully my pictures came out.

On Tuesday, Herman showed me how to sharpen the scythe and use it. most of the use has to
do with maintenance of the blade- it has to be sharpened every 10 to 15
minutes! Also, you have to use just the right technique when you are
cutting the grain, or you miss a bunch of plants and waste a lot of
energy. it's a nice full-body workout. since i was being a farmer, i put
a blade of the dried grass into my mouth and nibbled on it for a few
minutes. when i got to the end, i tried chewing on the seeds (too hard).
After a bit, it felt like there was something in my throat- maybe some
part of the barley plant. i started coughing in that choking way, and
fluid was coming out of just about every orifice in my body. i kept
coughing for a long, long time. herman tried looking down my throat, and
poking at it with chopsticks. i joked that the only thing that would work
was deep throating someone's dick, but let's face it, herman's is probably
really dirty, and shelley needed chris to help her with demolition on the
house.

this might have all just been an allergic reaction to the dried grasses.

later in the day, i harvested onions, garlic, lots of lettuce, and some more fava beans.

today, i helped herman to shore up the walls of the new irrigation ditch. He used the tractor to dig it, but he doesn't have the right equipment for it to come out as perfect as he'd like (he needs a ditcher). We had to use shovels to dig dirt out of the ditch to fill in short parts of the outer walls. It was a lot of digging during the hottest and coolest parts of the day (~12:30 to 2, and around 8-9:15). We didn't finish the ditch-- we left the shovels where we'd been working so we'll know tomorrow. In the afternoon, we went to town to pick up his truck from the mechanic and return his rental truck. And we went to the store. I got (and drank) tons of juice. Tons. Then we went down to the house and helped to load up wood and stuff to bring to the land. I used a big magnet to pick up hundreds of nails that were on the ground (Shelley stepped on one last week, and was so lucky that it didn't get infected).

In the last two days, Shelley found out that her house can't be moved when she wants it to be. The electric company has to move the power lines out of the way as the house is being moved down the street, and they decided a week in advance of the scheduled date that they can't do it then. Also, they are going to charge her some weird $3000 tax. I told her that she should go in there and tell them that they had an oral agreement (they never sent her a contract, but she did get 2 from the phone company), and if that doesn't work, she should cry (I would cry, and it'd be for real, but she claims that she's not much of a crier). I mean, this house is her dream, and it's so close to being closer to a reality. Except that she ran out of money, so the foundation isn't even getting built yet...but that's another story.

I've been getting into the pool with Chris before we go into the hottub. Tonight we met a nice kitty at the tub. She seemed to be trying to drink out of both the pool and the hottub, but then again, she could have been interested in the way that the water was moving. She was so cute! And she let us pet her with our warm hottub hands.

report from the farm

2006-05-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

Hey,

So my phone seems to be really fucked up. The battery dies at weird times, which tend to be when i am trying to use it.

We had a great day out at the farm. They are getting the area where the house is going to be ready- the soil there has to be like 90% compacted before the foundation can be poured, so we were using tractors and a "sheep foot" tractor thingie to level and compact that area. I also did some three hours of weeding. I got a sunburn on the small of my back from being bent over.

i feel like i am really learning how to do things around the farm, and being able to help out more. i had chris show me the compost pile, so while he and shelley were out working on the house (knocking down walls on the rooms that can't come with them), i was able to do things like take out the compost and pack up the dirty dishes. as the sun was going down, i went to the slough all by myself to turn off the generator that was running the pump. The water from the slough is being used to wet the ground where the house will be, cuz otherwise the soil is either too hard, or too fine, and it'd just "dust out"). This water is also being used to water the plants, since they don't have a pump or a storage tank for the well. The slough water seems to be leaving a white residue on the soil-- perhaps due to fertilizer or pesticides used on farms that are upriver.

It was really weird going alone to the slough. It was around sunset, so the nighttime bugs and animals were starting to come out. Every little noise would startle me when I least expected it to. And knowing that there was noone around for 1/2 a mile was pretty weird. Chris warned me of this a while ago, but this was the first time I experienced it. Weeding by myself was also weird- no radio, noone talking to me, just me, my thoughts, and the birds in the distance. well, there were workers on one of the farms next door, so you could hear the trucks from time to time....

When we got back to the apartment, I took stock of my sunburn while chris washed the dishes we'd used at the trailer over the last two days, and then we hit the hottubbie and the shower. they ate buffalo burgers and we all had fava beans and salad. and there was a veggie sausage/egg dish, too. we looked at http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2006/05/planet-of-slums.html, which has pictures of people with 10x10 rooms. my little shack that i want to build would be 10x12. i might have to get a shipping container to keep my crap in, too. $$$$

i just spent 45 minutes washing dishes, and now i'm going to get ready for bed.

Updated my photo gallery

2006-05-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

I updated themahtin.com tonight. It turns out that something was weird with the server, so I'd been having trouble logging in for a while. Last night I emailed Mark and he dealt with it right away.

Changes:
I added two photos to the loved ones section- one of Crystal and Oliver, and one of me. It's the best one of me since about 2 years ago.

I added a new folder for my most recent visit to my friends' (are they still my friends? they never call me back!) land, and then i put the pictures from my first visit into their own new folder

Someday I will post the europe photos, but I couldn't sleep last night and I need to try really hard to sleep tonight. Wish me luck!

Where's the chickens?

2006-05-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I went over to the garden tonight. There are invasive weeds all over the place. I checked on the birds and there don't seem to be any chickens. I tried to fix the plastic that is over the ducks' cage, and to work on cleaning out their ridiculous water containers. What a mess. The ducks seemed really... needy, like they wanted me to feed them or something. There was some bread left on the bottom of the cage. I don't know why-- we're not supposed to leave bread there cuz they'll eat it instead of their feed, and they'll get all malnourished and die. Fucking idiots.

So there is an egg in the chicken coop. No idea if it's from a chicken or a duck, or how long it's been there. Fucking asses.

And there are no chickens!! I called Terri Compost, and she was like, well, i guess they (the kids) took them somewhere. Uh, process?

Not sure if the person who has been doing most of the nanimal feeding and plant watering has left town yet or not. He might have.

At least I got to see something awesome: part of this movie 10.5 Apocalypse or something, where the golden gate bridge breaks apart and falls into the water. It was really well-done, seeming all realistic. I just love the view down there at the base of the bridge on a sunny day, with the sky all blue and the bridge all red, and the water all blue, and the breeze...

That garden is so awful.

Another great visit to Davis and the farm

2006-05-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

Started on Monday night:
I went to Davis on Saturday and just came back this evening. It was such a great visit. Chris and I went to the Whole Earth Festival on Saturday. We met a woman who has a small organic farm in their "neighborhood." They had even noticed her garden before. Her farm is called Full Circle Farm. She kind of has less planted than they do, but she's got a double-wide, interns, and a CSA. So I am excited that they will get to network with her.

Then Chris and I worked on my bike and I got to pet kitty cats. I almost got to go to a Sacramento IMC meeting, but hooking up with bianca was not happening, and she was going to stay out till all hours and I didn't want to do that. Anyhow, I got to look around at their old garden there, and then we went back to their apartment for cocktails and dinner preparation. Shelley and Herman got home at like 11:30 for dinner. That's after her bedtime! But it's how it is, a lot of days.

On Sunday we went grocery shopping. We took the route that goes through Utopian Village (Village Homes), and I almost cried when I was looking at their gardens. Their chickens were panting because of the heat, and I think they probably didn't have any water. We went back home and shared the news that the local grocery store is going to be closing while we made breakfast. Then after hanging out for a while longer, we went to the land (me, Shelley, and Chris), via the gas station. I tried to take a picture of the low gas warning in the car- I hope it came out, cuz it will be good for my peak oil blog.

Let me tell you for a minute how much i love it out there. The heat, the plants, the quiet (even in their apartment complex it is mostly quiet), the farmland, biking in Davis...I love it all.

So at the farm we hung out and drank juice while we acclimated ourselves to the sun and heat, and then went for a tour. Some of their newer trees are having trouble getting used to their new homes. Chris had told me about the weeds, but I got to really see for myself -- they have a shitload of weeds! And they are really, really hard to pull out! They are losing some lettuce because the bed they are in is so overgrown. They have more food out there than I thought, though-- young onions and garlic (sometimes these need thinning, or are starting to go to seed, so they pick those for din-dins), fava beans, peas, and like I said, the leafy green veggies. They've got some herbs that are trying to establish themselves. The wild mustard on the levee has all gone to seed and so two edges of the property have all these 6' tall plants with beautiful yellow flowers.

So it was all wonderful. We went home and ate fava beans and buckwheat with fresh onion and garlic and hung out and whatnot. Went to bed late, late, late, (the davis water does not agree with my hair!). I had a really hard time getting up on Monday, and I realized as the day went on that it was because i was getting sick. I've been sick all week now. Chris and I came up with a plan for a little house that we can build for me.

I biked back to the train station all by myself, with some awesome veggies from the farm. I was so inspired when I got home that I went over to the ridiculous community garden. It was...interesting. Things are green, which is good.

Ok, goodnight.

They sure know how to throw a party!

2006-05-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Dress and Kala's wedding in Joaquin Miller Park. I worked a bit on setup, took photos during the handfasting ceremony, ate/hungout, and then cleaned up and unloaded cars. I also walked in on them having sex for the first time. Oops!

The ceremony was beautiful- the people who participated in it wore such beautiful clothes and did such great invocations and tributes to Dress and Kala's relationship and place in the Reclaiming community.

It was weird that there were so many witches with dogs-- you'd think they'd be cat people more than dog people. The park must have gotten really flooded during the winter- there were boards over a pretty deep ditch that was more like a river bed.

It was great to be part of such an amazing day.

Quite a sad week

2006-05-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

Honza died this week. He was a rad gardener, punk, and person with aids. He died from something brain-related, either brain cancer or toxicoplasmosis. He used to use pot as his only hiv medication. he also smoked cigarettes (yuck!). He loved to grow kale.

I found out about a memorial service for him today too late to be able to plan to go. There will hopefully be another.

I can't find any pictures of him, but I did find some of the late, great Kamai, and a really good one of farmer Chris. And one of Molly, if he wants that one.

Being a worker sucks

2006-05-01T23:19:00.000-07:00

So today was may day, a huge economic and social boycott and general strike, with marches and other protests all over the place. My summary: I spent around $100, did laundry, fought with the man, did some work for the man, got exposed to a lot of chemicals, and made $6. I also didn't sleep enough. And I also took some likely really nice photos at the protest in Santa Barbara. And didn't take pictures of the student march that I saw--- didn't want to have to deal with parking the car (yes, I also drove today and had to buy gas). Bad day. It's always a bad may day when i don't get laid.

I have a lot of criticisms of this current immigrant rights movement. Do you know how many black flags I saw today? None. How many of the thousands of american flags that i saw were upside down or on fire? None. There is very little criticism of the us government or the war. one speaker did talk about one of the us's wars in asia and sort of compared her immigration story to the experiences of latinos today, but there wasn't a lot of radical politics to be had.

And not to talk shit, but i didn't see anyone giving out indymedia flyers. or returning my calls about where i can edit my photos. it's ok, i'm going home tomorrow.

Which is worth more-- money, or activism?

2006-04-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I am still here in SB. I worked the last 8 days, tho on Weds or Thurs I was really not feeling well. Only made like $75 for 4-5 hours of work. I more than made up for that this weekend, and have been getting tons of signatures.

I have been trying to figure out how to get back to the bay area for several reasons: May Day, i only have enough of my medication to get thru Monday, and homesickness. I need to get back to my life- work on the site, work out at the gym, work, planting seeds and planning for my new home...working on the farm in Woodland...sigh!

Hopefully I will be able to take photos at the Santa Barbara protest on May Day.

B is like, if you don't work you will be missing an $800-1000 day! And I'm like, I need to work on Indybay!

He bought me a bike today. I guess I have to get air in the tires and try to see if I can get the derailleur to work so I can shift gears...

So much to do.

Goodnight!

Home for another few days

2006-04-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

This second trip to SB was crazy. It took us forever to leave, and then we got lost a few times on the way there. We kept calling N and C in the hotel, giving them updates about where we were, except that we had been in those places hours before.

I guess that we were back for almost two weeks. During that time, N and C got more and more worried about money, and started bugging B about it ALL the time. The three of them missed at least two days of working because of all this fighting, and they also ate up all of my free time, because we were having meetings at 8pm every night.

At the SB Farmers' Market, I ran into a guy who had asked me the week before about working as a signature gatherer. I had gotten his number, but B had never called him. I got him and B hooked up, and he worked a bit. The very last thing that we did on the way out of town was get him a check. His name is Mike, he is a street artist, and when he hasn't been up all night, he has the prettiest dark blue eyes... (Zak has the prettiest bluish grey eyes.) I didn't have any time for pursuing romance, but I did daydream about it. Even to the point of figuring out how many sex partners I have had. It's good to remember the number once in a while, in case you ever have any new lovers.

Anyhow, I worked a lot, had some awesome days and some eh days. Zak is always surprised by how chipper I sound there. Yeah, I am happier dealing with 10 hour work days and lots of money coming in-- but it's because I know that the long days will not last. My body can do this, at least for a little bit.

I talked with my Ma and with Laurens on Sunday (Easter). Got the 411 and whatnot. It was a terrible day for working at the location that I chose. It was a weird weekend, because I knew that I was going to come home on Monday or Tuesday, but I didn't know how I was going to get here. Not until Monday morning, when B said that he (ie, we) would be driving back. We stopped in a few places to check out places to work. We also missed one or two places that we had wanted to look at. He was telling me long stories about his life with the Hog Farm. We found some REALLY great places to work. I may be stuck in a hotel all by myself for a few days, out in bumfuck, California next week. Should be interesting.

I also went into a Wal-Mart for the second time. Pretty amazing place, too bad they are so evil. I also have to say that the work I do with the petitions is fairly evil-- selling democracy. I'm basically like, "Please sign, so you can participate in the political process!" I saw an email somewhere last week about an "A for Anarchy" campaign. I would love to go out to the V for Vendetta movie and talk to folks about anarchy. I would love to go to supermarkets and stuff and talk to people about it, too, but it doesn't pay. I would love to have time and money to be able to go to the movies. Maybe another 24 hours in the day.

So we got home at about 11 last night (Monday night). Today I had to get up and work, and it was a stressful day because I overslept and didn't get to pick up my medication, so I didn't take it, and then after work I had to buy supplies and meet Zak for a late lunch, and then I got a flat on the way to the pharmacy (lugging my trailer with my cleaning supplies the whole time)... I called Jesse and he did the whole patching process in less than 10 minutes. It would have taken me a whole hour.

At least I got a nap in, with Zak even. :) And I got to work on Indybay and watch TV at the same time.

I got an email today about a new broadband for the car thingie. Too bad I couldn't have been a tester for that on this trip. My riseup account filled up so many times!!! And some people (sorry, Elizabeth) tried so hard to get me to do indymedia work for them...

I did the math for all the things that I could think of that I needed money for a few weeks ago, and it came out to $3500. When I got home I realized that I need to get a new monitor. I keep saying that when I get the money I will get a laptop. This is a difficult dilemma, because I love this computer and 2.5GHz still seems pretty fast. Maybe if I work enough, I can get both (bringing the total closer to $4000 and I have probably made less than half that, after expenses). Then my house could smell like plastic and give me headaches for a few weeks. I am also working to try to get money for an apartment.

What I learned today: If I continue to clean houses by bike, I will continue to be miserable. If I stop cleaning houses by bike and figure out a way to travel every few months, I will be happier.

Report from trip #1 to Santa Barbara

2006-04-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

What a trip that was.

We finally started packing the car to go on Saturday around 8:30pm at B's house. At one point, he had been in the house for a bit, and when he came out, we noticed that all of the doors to the car were open. He yelled, there's a cat in there! As we approached the car, that cat and another came running out. Oops. I was nervous that they would spray our stuff. We left town at around 9:30, stopped at a Wal-Mart (!) in San Leandro or whatever, and then finally kept going.

Just about everything that could have gone wrong on the trip did. At a rest stop somewhere before SLO, I got out to pee and B was stretching his legs or something. He looked back at the car and thought he saw something jump out of the car and run away-- something that looked like his "scaredy cat." We laughed about this for days. When we got to Santa Barbara, we tried to find our way around town, waiting for the hostel where N and C were staying to open. After a bit, B noticed that a car was following us. We pulled over, and the car did, too. We pulled a few parking spaces ahead, and the other car pulled out and stopped in the street when it was unable to find a parking space. We laughed and looked at a map. A moment later, a cop came up and asked us what we were doing-- he said that he had had a report that we were driving erratically. Great. This was basically our get out of town warning. We found a hotel room with 2 beds, and I took a nap for an hour or two, then got ready to go to work.

OVer the first few days, I was kicked out of at least two store parking lots for working without the owner or manager's permission. Great!

It turns out that N and C party all the time when they aren't working, they smoke, and they use yucky personal products. Wonderful.
Combined, they also make more money per day than I do. No fair!

So things haven't gone great down there- B ran out of money, the kids ran out of money, and I am on the verge of running out of money (i had to ask Z to lend me some money yesterday, and I worked a bit today). We drove back to the Bay Area on Monday, and I got home around 5:30pm.

We are supposed to go back in the morning. With some money, cuz B's superiors paid him for some of the work we have done.

I am getting a cold, but I'd better be able to work the rest of the week! It's hard to come home to my hunnybunch and then have to leave again. I gained around 5 pounds on this trip and got basically no exercise at all. Sigh!

I just found a random cd of music

2006-03-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

I really have no idea what this cd that I just found on my desk is. It has "She hangs brightly/ For Real" written on it. I put it in and it is some band, with a woman singing, kind of in a neil young-type style. the sound quality is really good,, so it's not old. I googled the title, and it's by Mazzy Star. Interesting.

this makes me think that the cd is one that my former lover leslie had given me. he sometimes gave me cd's with things like "Pee yourself in the presence of this disk (pooping is optional)" written on them (that cd contained necessary software, btw).

A better day is possible

2006-03-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today wasn't the greatest day, but it wasn't the worst. I wore my unlucky wingnut t-shirt, so we knew that it couldn't be too good. B was running really late this morning due to a 3-hour night of sleep. Then he realized he couldn't drop me off to wo rk by myself because of time constraints, so I had to help him/do nothing for a few hours. I did a bit of work at the Dublin St Patty's thing, and then we started driving around looking for places to work ("work" = gather signatures for petitions). We went the wrong way on the freeway, and then we eventually got back on track and went to Walnut Creek. Our spot was taken. Then we went to Lafayette, where our spot was also taken. Then we went to Danville, a town that I'd never thought I'd see again. We checked in with the store's customer service desk and they said noone had been working there. I started to set up and there was suddenly this guy behind me with petitions! He was like, I've been here for 2 hours, and we were like, well, we reserved this spot with the management. It was a bit ugly. The guy was kind of tweaking because he didn't have a cell phone, he clearly didn't know his way around, he didn't have a car, etc. He claimed to have "a family of four" to support. Rough life, his wife not having to work and all. B thinks the guy was bullshitting about a lot of it and he could actually make up to $70k per year as a professional signature gatherer (cuz you can travel to other states to do this stuff).

Speaking of travel, we might go out of town to do petitions. We'd leave this Weds or Thurs if things work out!! I think it would be worth it, even though I might spend most of the money on expenses. That's why I'd have to stay 1.5-2 weeks, instead of just 1. I'd miss Zak so much!! But $600 for 2 weeks would still be a lot better than what I make here. And I might make more.

We ran some errands and stopped at the long haul after work, so by the time I got home, I'd been gone for over 10 hours. I had only spent about 4.5 working. I guess I still made about $30/hour, which is more than I would have made if I'd stayed home. but I sure did need some naps.

I went to the Anarchist Cafe on Friday night and had a rather good time. I was stressed out all day because of organizing for Indybay's table at the Bookfair the next morning. Trying to organize (with) those folks is like trying to herd kittens. I think that the website's share of the money from the table ended up being about the same amount of money as we had put in to reserve the table and support the bookfair. I guess it was good to meet onto from san diego, and the guy from Arizona, and Nick from Sacramento, and to network and... oh, I got to hold Oliver for the first time! Woo hoo! I didn't actually see Crystal, cuz Wick was carrying the baby inside while Crystal was outside.

I did some rad networking this weekend, including a great talk with DJ Rubble on Friday night, and with Max and Isis on Saturday. :) I met a rad woman from TN who is about to travel around the world. I got to tell several ex-housemates about Kamai's death, so that was nice. I even got to commiserate about the loss of beloved cats with Natasha, who is only 3 and a half.

It was weird to not go to the antiwar march. And I had no interest in going to the anarchist pride parade that was after the bookfair. Post-bookfair marches have a lot of history, and most of it doesn't make anarchists or anarchism look very good.
I still didn't make it to the gym....

I got three great shirts yesterday. And lots of reading material, which could be good for the long nights in hotels out of town.

Lately I've been admiring women with short hair's hairdos, and I have to say that Natasha has one of the best ones. I saw a little girl tonight in Walnut Creek who had a great one, too. I wish there had been good short hairdos for girls when I was a kid. I sure do love having short hair-- saves so much maintenance time, and it all fits under my hat! My mother has roughly the same hair style, but at least we're on opposite coasts. And my sister has long hair, so we look SO much less alike. I hope to make enough money to feel comfortable going to MA to visit my family later this spring. I'd like to bring Zak, too. I'm long overdue for a visit.

Goodbye, Kamai

2006-03-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

I've been writing a bit here and there about our cat, Kamai, being sick. She had chronic renal failure, and this year an infection and the anemia from the kidney disease were really hard on her. The vet called yesterday to say that after some 7 weeks of taking the antibiotic Clavamox, the infection had gone away. She'd been starting to have trouble walking. By last night I had noticed that she hadn't eaten all day. We gave her her medicines and she threw them up later. Around when we gave her the medicines, I convinced him that it was time to bring her to the vet for the last time.

She got weaker and weaker, and I brought her to sleep with Zak. She had a good night with him, but she wasn't able to get up in the morning. It was good that we had already made the decision.

I spent a lot of time worrying about how to get her to the doctor, but i was able to get ahold of Monikat in the morning. Zak wasn't able to come with us, cuz he had homework due. It was very hard and sad, but we got through it.

I cried on a lot of people's shoulders today- Nora, Crystal, Molly, Tristan, the chiropractor, Julia, Ximena, and of course Zak and Monikat. I also talked to a lot of people on the phone. And spent a lot of time worrying about work stuff, but that seems to be working itself out (one client is going away for a long weekend, so i won't have to do them).

We are very sad and missing our Kamai Meow. (photo was added on wednesday)

Sickly

2006-03-03T13:09:00.001-08:00

eyes burning
under weather
mahtin yearning
to feel better

my petitioning boss keeps harassing me to get out there and work. i've had this cough since tuesday and i think that with one more day of rest, i'd start to feel better.

yes, i know, it's bad that i'm gathering signatures for money. i like to think of it as making extra money from the state during my free time (since i am underemployed). i was really counting on making a lot of money this spring so i could move out of my apartment, but i have been SO sick in the last month. and i do so much good work for indybay when i'm at home...

I liked this picture

2006-02-27T23:52:00.000-08:00

The Coalition for Immokalee Workers didn't want Indybay to use this photo, but I quite liked it. This has nothing to do with the fact that I worked at McDonald's for 2 and a half years.

So....

2006-02-27T23:46:00.000-08:00

Today I figured out why people here bike all year round-- because it doesn't usually rain as bad as it did today. I got so wet in the first mile after work that I decided to go get lunch and do food shopping at Berkeley Bowl on the way home. When I got into the store I realized that my usually sufficient cheapo boots had puddles in them. You wouldn't believe how flooded the garden was yesterday, and that was before all the rain today!!

Speaking of work, today I cleaned my weekly client's house for the 2nd to last time. Sad Mahtin. Weekly clients rock, and they were my only one.

My cat is missing yet again. Even in the wind and a bit of rain. It's actually been pretty warm out tonight, I guess. She is supposed to have 4 medications tonight, and she missed them all.

Today my copy of the book Shelter came in the mail. Too bad I'm reading 3 other books right now.

I hope I can make it to Mardi Gras tomorrow, and maybe visit Crystal, Oliver, and of course Wick. And get to the gym. And get lots of work done on the site. :/

Congratulations to Crystal and Wick!!

2006-02-27T00:10:00.000-08:00

Crystal and Wick are the proud parents of Oliver, who weighed in at 8 pounds, 11 ounces this weekend. In the last month he had moved into breech position, so Crystal had to have the surgery. Moriah said that Crystal is relieved to not be carrying him around inside anymore, and that Wick has hardly put the baby down.

Good for them! :) We always need more kids in the anarchist community. Sadly, Crystal and her belly won't get to participate in the Berkeley Mardi Gras parade. Moriah joked that we could try to bring the parade to the hospital.. ;) (what the hell am i going to wear to mardi gras?)

I will try to visit in the next day or two.

I don't want to live here anymore

2006-02-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

Today was the first time I ever wore my brand-new red (I hate red clothes) wingnut t-shirt. I was so excited to get one when they first came out, but somehow the Long Haul never had my size when I had the money to buy a shirt. They have this saying about why Berkeley never slides off into the Bay-- because there's a wingnut on every corner (holding it down). The right wing calls us moonbats now.

Thinking I was going to get a ride from Momo, I ran my trader joe's errands before running my vet errands (couldn't do both in one trip, cuz I had to get cold stuff at both places). She lamed out and drove herself without bringing me (ah, the luxury of being able to afford gas and a giant car). It was a beautiful day, and the ride to TJ's was great. I think I didn't even break any eggs on all the really, really bumpy streets.

I put off going to the vet for as long as I possibly could. I took Sacramento, which becomes Market, to 45th Street. Market was really scary- lots of cars, particularly huge SUVs, going really fast, and the right lane keeps disappearing and getting wider and skinnier. It's not cool. Plus you tend to see lots of people who don't have license plates in that neighborhood. That means if you get hit, noone is held accountable. Mofos probably don't even have licenses. So I'm riding along on my bike with my trailer behind me. I cross MLK, I think against the light cuz I hate to wait when there's no traffic there. I head down 45th and under the freeway or BART or both or whatever. I have a good friend and client who lives near the other end of the block. The road dips under the freeway for some stupid reason, and there is a ridiculous hill to get back to street level. This is another rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, with projects and apartment buildings and also nice houses that are being bought up by white people.

I see some kids fooling around with some really big boxes, like fridge or bookcase-sized boxes, up near the top of the hill. I think to myself, that's funny, when we were littler than that, we used to play inside that kind of box, not on top of it. Well, they get tired of using the boxes as sleds, and two kids pick the boxes up (there were somewhere between 2 and 4 of these kids, all black, one with shoulder-length dreds or braids). People throw stuff at me ALL the time. Earlier today, one kid in a group of 12 or 13 year old wanna be mallrats had run alongside me, and I had ignored him the best I could. Last summer, some kids about 5 blocks from my house had thrown rocks at me and had even RUN alongside me, either for better aim, or hoping they could steal my bike. So these days I try to not acknowledge kids who want to have anything that could be negative to do with me.

Well, these kids held their boxes menacingly, and then threw them at me- first at my front tire, and then at what I thought was the trailer, but I think it actually hit the back wheel of a bike. I was so shocked that people would so something so shitty, so downright MEAN! I mean, come on!

All I could do was yell something like "Why would you do something like that? That's so mean!" I guess I was trying to engage them without swearing, tho swearing is my usual response. There were some people out on the street, a little ways up from where we were, still on the hill. I checked out my bike and sort of kept moving, but then sort of stopped to look at the bike, and yelled to the nearest person, "Whose kids are these?!" Like I hinted above, someone's got to be held accountable for these kids' actions. Obviously the kids weren't going to want anything like that. the guy was like, I don't live around here. and I was like, my front wheel could be wrecked, you know, cuz sometimes it doesn't show right away. and he was like, you might have a slow leak, you'd better get home! And then I was like, well, I'm not even halfway there yet! I still have to run my errands!" and got back on the bike.

Fuck. Why do people have to be so mean? Why do we live in such a car-oriented society? With what shall I arm myself so I can have some sort of revenge on the next people who do this kind of thing to me? Do I really want to keep cleaning for the people who live on that block? This is the thing, that eventually I will stop leaving the house at all, because I don't want to have any more bad shit happen to me.

Z suggested that I could have been wearing a red shirt in a "blue" (gang) neighborhood. I'm a fucking white chick with a bike trailer! I have in the past known white chicks who've run stuff for gangs on bikes, but I would like to think that I don't "look like" them. Plus, my neighborhood is, I think, a blue neighborhood. I rode around it earlier in my fucking red shirt. This shirt was $8, mind you, and my other red shirt was free, AND I usually wear blue because I like blue.

I get super-indignant when I think about how these kids don't know anything about me and the things that I do. I'm a fucking activist and gardener! I'm trying to make the world a better place! What were they thinking when they chose me as the target of their assholishness?

Wow, has it been a whole week already?

2006-02-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

Here's something that I was writing to Bradley tonight:

did i tell you that someone from my high school found me on myspace this week? scary. but she was a friend of mine from homeroom, so it's cool. [that's jodi] i guess. but it's hard to explain to people who don't live 3000 miles from where they grew up, what it's like to... always want to leave, then be stuck there for 4 years of college, and to finally get away and have a whole new life... at the same time as all that, i often feel like i live in a form of exile, because i never have money to go back.

i wrote my big paper my sr year of college about queer women writing about exile. latin american women. from the southern cone, more specifically. in spanish.
---

It's weird, because everyone at our high school wanted to get the fuck out of that town. And so many people didn't. There were these kids from my sister's year who all wanted to go to NYU. I think the only person I knew who went to NYU was a kid from BAGLY who became a ho in New York. The rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio goes to gay bars came from him (that's what Paul said, anyhow). My sister still lives with my mother, and she's almost 29! I mean, it's one thing to stay if everything's cool and you like inherit a house or whatever, but...ugh!

So it was nice to hear from Jodi and get to see her myspace and see that she does rad shit, even if it is in that horrible suburb that she doesn't mind. That I'd like to go visit for a day or 3. but I'd stay in Cambridge/Somerville, of course. Which reminds me of all the weddings I haven't been able to go to because of the lack of $$$. And the activism and cat drama and whatever else is going on in my life.

Let's see if I can remember the books I wrote about senior year.
Cristina Peri Rossi's La nave de los locos (Ship of Fools in English version) and En breve carcel by Silvia Molloy. I wish I could remember the title in English- it's such a great book. La nave de los locos was kind of wingnutty, but also a cool read. I miss reading Latin American literature. But do I miss it enough to get a Master's in it?

That's not the question. The questions are, who would pay for it, and what would I do with such a degree?

Alan Shore Makes a Funny

2006-01-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

Heh, I was watching the end of "Boston Legal" tonight, and the Alan Shore character said something really funny to Denny Crane (William Shatner). He said, "There you are! I've hardly seen you this episode!"

Hah!

General personal update

2006-01-17T00:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a busy few weeks. I read the 5th Harry Potter book during the first week of the year (870 pages!). Last week I worked a fair bit and hardly went to the gym at all. I was totally psyched all week about going to Davis on the weekend. On Saturday morning, CP came and picked me and some kombucha up. Saturday afternoon turned out to be sunny in Woodland. But we did bring two extra pairs of boots- one for her, and one for me.

We hung out at the apartment for a while when we first got there- eating, looking at pictures of cute baby animals on the web, and generally catching up. We got to meet Alex, the Dilapidated Sirian. I went to look at my photos on themahtin.com, and found out that it's messed up. Can't get ahold of Mark, but hopefully we can rectify this situation soon.

We got to see the land- about 3 acres are planted, they've done some work planting trees and stuff on the levee, and the alfalfa is doing well on the rest of the land. We walked around and looked at mushrooms and gigantic dog or coyote footprints. We checked out how Chris has reorganized the storage container, checked out the view from atop the storage container, and even got to smell the air from the feedlot across the street. It was so beautiful out there. I don't think the feedlot is very big, and it's at least 1/2 a mile away, so it doesn't smell too too bad.

Then we went to see the "French lead shack." It's the house that Shelley is buying. We got to examine the plaster walls, and the nasty carpet, and all the rooms and weird doors and passageways. I had thought it had 2 bathrooms, but there's just one. It's a bit musty and one of the windows is broken. That's ok, cuz they are going to replace the windows.

After we were in the house, Chris and I checked out the barn. They get to take it, too, but they have to tear it down. It's made of old-growth redwood with a tin roof. Some of the crossbeams are like 30 feet long. It's really tall, and it's going to be quite a project. There are some other outbuildings that I am hoping they will get to take, too- the more materials they get, the better.

After that we went to Shelley's parents' and brother's family's property to pick some food for dinner- we got sunchokes, bok choi, some wild onions, and some cat loving. We returned to the apartment, just as Herman was coming home with what had to be $200 worth of groceries. We snacked and chatted and prepped food, and ate, and I left in the middle of dinner to come home. My back was bad and I hadn't been sleeping much, so it was good to get back to my own bed.

On Sunday we had a good day at the garden- I met two people - Lily (haven't I met her before?) and Dirk, with whom I chatted about natural building.

Over the weekend I realized that I couldn't find the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so on Sunday afternoon, Zak and I started going through the house to try to find it. It's been good to be de-cluttering and catching up on things. I still can't find my blue swim suit. Maybe I left it at the gym or something? I found the camera cord this morning, when I reached into my desk drawer with my hand to make sure it wasn't there. But it was! I guess I hadn't reached in with my hand when I realized it wasn't there.

The cat has been steadily getting sicker, so Momo gave us a ride to the vet today for some tests and a nail trim. Kitty still has lots of energy, but she pukes at least twice a day! And she has lost a pound in the last year.

It's about 12:24, still no word about Running Bear.

Goodbye, Running Bear

2006-01-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

I remembered to turn on the radio at 11:56 to listen to KPFA's coverage of the execution of Running Bear (Clarence Ray Allen). I guess there's about 500 people out there, rallying, reading writings by Allen, and joining in chants.

He sounds like an interesting guy. We don't usually get to hear from a person's grandkids when the person is on death row, but their writings have been read a fair bit.

So sad...

Ooh, the website of my old camp!

2006-01-08T23:39:00.000-08:00

Hee hee! I went to Camp Squanto a bunch of times between 3rd grade and something like 11th grade. Those were really some of the best times of my life.

I was reminded of it because on this pagan email list I'm on, someone was asking for info about the author of a song: "Humble Yourself in the Arms of the Wild." We sang a song whose title was "Humble Yourself in the Sight of the Lord," cuz it was a christian camp. Heehee!

Firecrackers and gunshots

2006-01-01T00:22:00.000-08:00

I went to yet another wingnutty party at the Cathaus tonight. It was a dinner party, from 7-10pm. They traditionally try to kick us out at 10, meaning that everyone is gone by 10:40. At about 9:50, someone decided that we would all ring in the new year in Chicago. Meaning, it was about to be midnight in Chicago. Funny, huh? I got to meet one of their new housemates, who was apparently drinking gin from a bottle in the fridge all night. Interesting, since the invite for the party had asked that people not bring alcohol. I did have a few sips of Elisa's honey wine after "midnight." Z thought that maybe it had a strong taste of cloves. There hadn't been a party at the Cathaus since Jen's memorial, and even then, tonight was only 20 or 25 people.

It was awkward, because the-ex-who-shall-not-be-named was there, and I am not talking to him until I am ready to address some issues I have about how he seems to think that I am a friend who can be left dormant and then turned on when he feels like it. I did get sad when I looked over and saw those fingers. Flesh, I guess. We used to make out on the couch at the Batcave for hours...

What I did at the garden today

2005-12-26T01:20:00.000-08:00

Today I waited till it had stopped raining and went over to the garden, bags of fava bean and potato seeds in hand. Ayala was there- the only other christmukkah refugee to show up.

I separated all these clumps of garlic that were in the same bed where we had grown garlic last winter, and spread them out some through the bed. Ayala thinks they are from seeds from the plants this summer. I wonder if someone didn't just plant whole bunches of garlic here and there, cuz some were out of place. I made a huge, muddy mess of the path, and it started raining before I finished. Not sure how even the soil is in that bed, and it is really clayey, so we'll see how this stuff grows.

Then I planted fava beans in a bed that had had tomatoes in it this summer. It's a bed that had been double-dug this spring. I also put some in one of the beds up front, near the water. There's not a lot of space there, cuz it's between a comfrey and a huge, happy artichoke. I would like to grow a whole lot of favas- I bought some dried favas at the store this week and they were like 2.52 a pound. They grow all year here- there is no excuse for not growing them (aside from fellow gardeners not liking them). I also snuck about a half dozen seeds in where people planted peas a few weeks ago, so that if the peas don't grow, we'll still have something!

After that I went next door and dug around in the planting boxes to see how deep they are. I almost used the first one I came to, but then I realized that for some reason, it's not as deep as it looks. I planted them in a slightly longer box that still needs more soil. Hopefully our compost will hurry up so we can put it in there. There was some rotten garlic in the bag with the taters, and I found 2 or 3 that were plantable. I noticed a couple of fava beans coming up in the front of the new lot. I wonder if they are from the missing seeds that I harvested this summer.

It was just too wet by this point. I picked through the waste greens that Ayala had left to take some home, feed some to the worms (added some dirt, too, just in case there are any worms left in the box), and put the rest into buckets for adding to the compost. I had wanted to shift the compost, but it was so ridiculously wet out...the ground in front of those bins is toast. Near there, some radishes are too far gone. Hopefully we can save seeds from a few of them, since radishes also grow year 'round.

Ayala worked on the strawberries (dividing and replanting) and greens (mostly picking), and I think she did some other stuff.

I wish we had gotten wood chips for mulch for the paths! Sigh. I guess we should have a list of what kind of wood we want - redwood, um...people were opposed to pine, i think, even though it was fine when we had pine wood chips at my last house...but we need something that's not allelopathic (sp) like walnut or juniper or whatever.

It is raining really hard now! And there is this weird wind from time to time.

Let's be realistic about South Berkeley

2005-12-22T02:17:00.000-08:00

I wrote the email below in response to a post on a housing email list. Andrew was one of the founders of Love and Politics, a progressive polyamorous group in the bay area (mostly upper middle class folks who are in their late 30s and 40s).

I hate to tell you (and him), but he is about to further gentrify this neighborhood. He's a stuffy-looking and sounding guy who means well, but...he takes up space. I know that I'm a bit biased because I was so disappointed in L+P (it's just not my people, even though their rhetoric almost sounds like it is). I'm also bitter because I will never have money to buy a house, or land, or even new rain gear for my stupid anarchist, anti-capitalist, pro-exercise lifestyle of riding my bike everywhere-- even in the rain. But also, as a person who has started 2 houses and lived in several others, I know that he is missing a lot of details about what his needs from housemates are, and since he will be the owner, his needs come first, and they need to be stated from the outset.

I know, I didn't recommend another neighborhood to him. Where do you send the middle class white folks who want to buy an affordable house in the Bay Area? I guess he could look at Elmwood? Hayward? Modesto? And people who are middle class in the Bay Area would be upper middle class in most parts of the country...

>Subject: Fwd: Do you want to change the world? Would you like to live with others who do?
>Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:42:42 -0800 (PST)
>
>Thought you might be interested in this co-op housing
>opportunity.
>
>
>Note: forwarded message attached.
>From: "Andrew Hoerner"
>Reply-To: CoopNetwork@yahoogroups.com
>To:
>Subject: [CoopNetwork] Do you want to change the world? Would you like to live with others who do?
>Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:10:38 -0800
>Dear Friends--
>
>Do you want to change the world?
>
>Well, change begins at home.
>
>I have long dreamed of a community of progressive activists, scholars
>and professionals, and others who are ambitious to make a lasting
>positive mark on the world, a home that would embody a rich and diverse
>intellectual and political environment and a center for activism and
>activist thought. Plus sharing some meals and good times.
>
>To this end, I am negotiating for purchase of an eight-bedroom house in
>the Temescal area of Oakland where Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley come
>together. The house will be an attractive, high-amenity space, including
>two living rooms and a hot tub, easy biking to most of Berkeley, about 6
>blocks from the Ashby BART and mere steps to major AC Transit routes.
>
>Rents are set to cover my costs over the life of the mortgage, and are
>roughly market rate for a facility of this quality. This amounts to
>roughly $650/monthy for a large single room, or about $900-$1100 for
>two-room suites, depending on the number occupying the suite and other
>factors. Community experience: priceless.
>
>Given successful negotiation, we will begin to have spaces available in
>March or April, with additional rooms coming open in April or May, and
>are looking now for folks who would like to settle down in such a
>community for the long haul.
>
>We are looking for people to whom this sounds appealing, either as
>collaborators who might be willing to join this project and help bring
>it off, or just as folks who would like to live in such a setting as
>community members. People who join early will get first dibs on rooms
>and a voice in how the house is remodeled. Interested people please
>write me with a little information about yourself at
>hoerner@redefiningprogress.org
>>org> and I will send you more information.
>
>Peace,
>
>Andrew
>
>P.S. Please feel encouraged to forward this email to any person or list
>that you think might be interested, up until January 7. After that,
>please write me before forwarding.
>
>J. Andrew Hoerner
>Director of Research
>Redefining Progress
>Oakland CA Office:
>1904 Franklin Street, 6th Floor
>Oakland CA 94612
>Phone: (510) 444-3041 ext. 328
>Fax: (510) 444-3191
>

Hi, Andrew,

You've got the neighborhood wrong in your housemate ad. Temescal is near MacArthur BART, not Ashby. Think 51st and Telegraph, basically. If you're talking about where Emeryville, Berkeley, and Oakland meet, that's a whole different area (west of Ashby BART). My friends and I call it Southwest Berkeley. Or if you mean south of the bart station, that's North Oakland. Six blocks east or north, and it's just (South) Berkeley, but not near Emerville.

You might want to be a bit more up front/realistic about the neighborhood in your ad. It is gentrifying faster than what happened in the Mission, which may be part of why it's not the most comfortable, socially-speaking. I've lived in several places around Southwest Berkeley and northernmost Oakland (including my present place). Bikes have been stolen from a house and a yard with a tall fence where I've lived, and chickens were stolen from our community garden this fall. And a guy was fatally shot in the middle of my block last year. Things are really complicated, with older African American couples, younger folks with kids who live with their parents, white hipsters, Latino families, and lots of poor and now houseless folks who are trying to hold on to their housing, even if it is of poor quality-- all living next door to one another in a country where the poor and people of color are discriminated against.

Good luck!

-Mahtin

Yet more bad news!

2005-12-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

Jess and I made plans twice last week to garden together. We at least had to meet so I could give her the CD of photos of the things that the grant she got us, so she could pass the photos on to our funders. She is always so hard to get ahold of that I didn't think it odd that she never answered her land line, and her cell phone was turned off this weekend.

Well, sometime on Saturday, her housemates heard a big thump as she fell out of her loft bed. When they went into her room, they found her twitching (and unconcious, I guess) on the floor. She had apparently broken a blood vessel in-between her skull and her brain- ie, she has a bad concussion! She has been semi-conscious and has been moving around a bit in bed, even with a neck brace on, so thankfully she is not in too bad a condition.

I guess she'll be transferred to another hospital sooner or later, and held for a week or more, for physical therapy and readjusting to eating solid food (it's now been 2 days since she has eaten).

Her parents came to town, and friends have also been with her at the hospital. She will probably be moved out of Highland tomorrow.

Just what is it about this time of year?

2005-12-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Is it the solstice coming? Is it just a coincidence that I have more energy for the garden?

Lately I've been obsessing about cover crops and sunchokes. I went through most of the garden and dug up the sunchokes the last two Sundays (I probably should have left some more of them in the gound). I worked on the compost the last two days (boy, did it need it!), and I bought cover crop seeds. I dug up bermuda grass in a ~8x4 foot area yesterday, and tried to dig up some of the grass in the lot next door. Whew, that is hard work- it's years and years and years of composting grass, holding that soil down tight. but there are lots of wormies in there. So even if where I dug is where the cadmium is, it's still fairly fertile.

I guess I am going to go out there in a few minutes. It's raining out and I have a sore throat, but does that stop me? No. It must be the Solstice or the full moon that was this week...But I should get those sunchokes back in the ground, and maybe plant potatoes that will die because of the cold weather...and I will sprinkle lots of clover seed...

What a jerk!

2005-12-12T18:01:00.000-08:00

Yah, I can't believe that the governator waited until today to announce his clemency decision. What a shithead.

There were so many problems in the trial, but even if you ignore all of that and assume he was guilty, if you look at what he has done in the last 10 years or so, you can see that he deserves clemency. He's clearly not sitting at San Quentin and plotting to kill anyone-- instead he is thinking about life.

We have been doing rad coverage of the Williams case. Some news that you might have missed: 13 medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego were raided today, like right when the governator was announcing his clemency decision. Fire in the skies if Tookie dies! I don't think that's going to happen.

At least they didn't like acquit Michael Walker, the accused killer of Rudy Cardenas (in San Jose), today. A decision in that case is due any day, as the jury is deliberating already.

Free Daniel Mc Gowan and all political prisoners!

Oh, god...

2005-12-10T01:25:00.000-08:00

Something I realized tonight was that Danny might be stuck in jail forever. I mean, I guess that right now he must be in some sort of federal jail cell (or on a plane on the way to one, since he didn't get bail in NYC). And in this kind of limbo, he probably doesn't get outside at all- no walks or anything. No books. Can't cook for himself. Could conceivably never cook for himself again. (We used to talk about recipes and herbal remedies and things, so this is heartbreaking to me)

I keep thinking about things to send him to read. And pictures or whatever. And about writing to him. I've never written to a political prisoner before- at first I was too shy, but that faded and now I'm too paranoid (they read everyone's mail, ya know). But I think it's different when it's someone who you know.

Hopefully he won't be convicted, and he'll be set free and can return to his life. But what if he's not, or it's not soon? Will his partner lose her apartment? If he is convicted, will he be allowed to have a garden if he wants one? If he gets out, will he still have a job/would he be able to get another?

And some people worry that he or the others could snitch (in exchange for hints of lesser charges or recommendation for shorter sentences). Or make things up about people, or be forced to like, list everyone they know or something. We have to hope that that kind of pressure isn't being put on any of them, and that they are all strong enough to resist.

I hope he's ok.

Funny the trouble my ex-lovers seem to get into

2005-12-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

Oh, dear. Daniel McGowan, who was a friend of mine when he stayed here in the Bay for a few weeks or months (so long ago that I forget!), was arrested. This is so bad! He was a really dedicated activist when I knew him, and also surprisingly dedicated to making a living as an office worker. I'm starting to understand why so many of the folks who are 20-30 years older than me do activism around prison issues- it must get to a point where everyone knows someone who got arrested or convicted for one thing or another... "McGowan and Meyerhoff are facing the most severe sentences for non-violent sabotage in United States history." this is bad!

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Federal marshals arrested six environmental activists in a series of coordinated raids in four states yesterday, Dec. 8, in apparent response to a string of arsons in Oregon and Washington attributed to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), including simultaneous attacks in 2001 at the University of Washington's Urban Horticulture Center and the Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon.

Daniel McGowan, 31, was arrested in New York City while working at WomensLaw.org, an advocacy organization that provides legal information for victims of domestic violence. He was held overnight, and brought before a judge in the Brooklyn Federal Court to determine whether he would be released on bail pending his arraignment and trial in Eugene, Oregon. The hearing is currently adjourned until Friday, Dec. 9 at 2 pm, while the judge will review a surveillance recording that an arresting detective alleges demonstrates McGowan is a flight risk.

-- -- -- --

McGowan is better known to the New York media as Jamie Moran, a pen name he used to protect his private life while acting as a rowdy spokesperson for anti-Bush protesters in the lead-up to the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC). Several stories were written about his good-humored activism in Rolling Stone and the New York Times, as well as The Indypendent. “Jamie,” as many New York activists came to know McGowan, was always ready to encourage others to stand up for what they thought was right.

Outspoken with his anti-authoritarian politics, McGowan challenged NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and the Daily News rumor machine on their claims of a violent “anarchist menace” that was supposed to rain chaos on the city. McGowan’s good humor and total rejection of the institutions of government were plain-stated and heartfelt.

Despite all the pre-RNC fear-mongering, the main anarchist contributions to the historic anti-Bush protests were a bike ride, housing out-of-town activists and a day of entirely non-violent protests with 1,800 arrests. Almost all the charges were eventually dismissed as baseless and a civil suit against the city is still pending, but police repression throughout the convention was justified by the blanket of fear that they themselves had spread.

Fast forward to today...

McGowan is under a 16-count indictment related to his alleged involvement in the 2001 Poplar Farms arson, and a separate incident earlier in the same year at the offices of a lumber company. Federal prosecutors are further alleging that he is a member of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a decentralized direct-action movement responsible for over $100 million in damages to urban “sprawl” developments and SUV dealerships. The ELF has made the top of the FBI's list of domestic threats.

McGowan faces mandatory minimum sentences of 30 years each on two major charges, which, if pressed to trial, threaten a life sentence. Stanislas Meyerhoff, 28, was also charged in the tree farm fire and is being held in Virginia. According to the Dept. of Justice, he also faces life in prison. Additional arrests and raids happened in Prescott, Arizona and Springfield Oregon in related cases.

McGowan and Meyerhoff are facing the most severe sentences for non-violent sabotage in United States history.

McGowan totally denies any involvement with arson, and denies membership in the ELF. This reporter has no information about Meyterhoff beyond what has appeared in the media and on the DoJ's website.

One activist familiar with government prosecutions directed at the militant wing of the animal rights movement, present at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse, noted that prosecutors routinely "throw the book" at defendants during pre-trial motions in order to deny bail to the accused and spread panic among the like-minded, but that the most serious charges often can't be backed up and are dropped once trial proceeds.

In recent months, he has worked to popularize the case of Jeffrey "Free" Luers, an alleged member of the Earth Liberation Front who was sentenced to over 20 years in prison for a fire at an SUV dealership that destroyed several vehicles. It wasn't just environmentalists outraged at the 20 year sentence, and the Luers case is widely seen as a travesty of justice, but McGowan's activism in spreading the word about Luers may have contributed to the government's interest in him.

-- -- -- --

National Lawyers Guild attorney Martin Stolar is representing the defense in his New York court appearances.

Stolar informed the presiding judge that McGowan's father, a retired police officer, mother and sisters were all willing to put their homes and co-ops up for bail -- worth up to an estimated $1,000,000 -- and that McGowan was confident of an acquittal, the wet-behind-the-ears prosecutor went into the audience benches to consult with a white-haired man who turned out to be the federal prosecutor responsible for Eugene, Ore.

After whispering for a few minutes. the prosecutor spoke with a Eugene detective working on the case, who is also deputized as a federal marshal. and asserted that the detective had heard "recordings" of the defendant saying he had been "hiding out" in Canada several years back, though not necessarily in relation to any particular event, or from any particular governmental entity.

The recording was not a phone tap, but had been made at a location in "northern Manhattan" in 2005.

Considering this alleged recording made by an undisclosed source and the severity of the charges, the judge said that she was inclined to deny bail.

Stolar immediately noted that this had not been introduced into the hearing before bail was offered, and that this was hearsay.

Following this, the detective took the stand under oath saying that he heard McGowan say he had been "hiding out," or that he "hid" in Canada. During the time he is alleged to have been hiding, there were no charges pending or warrants outstanding against him. For his part, McGowan said that he was on a vacation in Canada and has lived openly in Eugene and New York, as well as taking trips to Canada.

On cross-examination, Stolar asked the detective if the recording was made by a "cooperating witness." The prosecution objected and the judge sustained the objection.

The source of the recording remains unknown. The prosecutor said that more information on the recording could not be shared in court because this is an ongoing investigation, with further arrests pending.

Stolar noted that this alleged recording could have been of anyone, and insisted that before the judge deny bail, that she should at least hear the recording to verify that the detective had testified truthfully. The detective said that the recording was in his hotel room, and noting the lateness of the day, adjourned the hearing until 2 p.m. tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 9).

The prosecution also insisted that defense council not be allowed to hear the recording, as it would compromise the ongoing investigation of this 5-year old case.

Speaking outside the courthouse, Stolar was optimistic that if the recording is inconsistent with the detective's testimony, the chance of bail being granted was "better than what it was."

Whether McGowan is released on bail or not, the next venue for arraignment and possible trial will be in Eugene, Oregon.

---------

Aside from two dozen supporters and friends, McGowan's immediate family, girlfriend and co-workers were in attendance. Many were shocked at the severity of the charges, with co-workers saying that he is the "nice guy who cracks everyone up" at the job.

McGowan's girlfriend was visibly distraught, having come home to their apartment and finding it torn apart by police and her partner facing life in prison.

Supporters of McGowan gathered at a nearby diner after the hearing to discuss the events.

---------
From the Department of Justice's announcement of the nationally coordinated raids:

"These indictments and arrests were the result of a nine year investigation of numerous arsons in the Northwest and other states. In many of the fires the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility. Participating in the extensive investigation were the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), the Eugene Police Department, the Portland Police Bureau, the Oregon State Police, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Oregon Department of Justice and the Lane County Sheriff's Office. The investigation is continuing."

By Jed Brandt jedbrandt@gmail.com http://indypendent.org

Save Tookie!

2005-12-04T22:34:00.000-08:00

Dude this is so funny!

2005-12-01T23:57:00.000-08:00

I am watching "South Park," the one where Terrance and Phillip come to town. Asses of fire and things like that. It's so funny!

Sigh...

There are so many things I was going to write about, and maybe I still will- the Thanksgiving with 4 Harolds, the trip to the land of cold and snow (and my near miss with snow), all the books I've been reading, the satisfaction and frustration that come from trying to clean this damn apartment, what I've learned about Kombucha...

And I think I might be close to having some energy for the garden again. Maybe. Don't hold your breath. I have to go do another 1/2 hour of physical therapy.

Photo of some indymedia folks from today

2005-11-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a photo that Jeff Paterson took of me and the folks I went to today's protest with.

I took pictures of Snoop today!

2005-11-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

Omigawdomigawdomigawd!

Today Snoop Dogg spoke at a rally for clemency for Stanley "Tookie" Williams, and I took Photos of Snoop Dogg!!!

He's just as good looking as he looks on tv, but he is a bit shorter.

It's Kombucha time!

2005-11-12T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today my friends the Cats came over with Kombucha in a jar. I had pre-washed 4 jars, and I made tea while they took some weird hour-long detour on the way to my house. I made black tea in one container, and ginger/green tea in the other. Both with lots of sugar. He came with a squat, wide-mouthed jar that had 5 or 6 "babies" in it. When the tea had pretty much cooled down to room temperature, we poured it into the jars and separated the babies, putting one into each jar. Then we split the remaining liquid amongst all the jars (the goal is to save 1 cup to put into each new jar of tea). I closed the jars up with paper towels, and held them down with a rubber band or the mason jar rings. Then I had to figure out where the hell to put all these jars- my house seems to have all these moldy spots, and mold doesn't go well with kombucha.

Apparently Herman buys a lot of kombucha, so now he'll be able to make his own. :) After I figure out how to get all these jars to him. :/ I want to find out how to make flavored kombuchas, such as raspberry- it'd probably taste a lot like the raspberry lambic that we like, but with lots less booze in it (around 1/2%).

How to make kombucha
About kombucha
The Manchurian mushroom
Cooking measurement equivalents

More signs of the crisis in California's "democracy"

2005-11-08T23:06:00.000-08:00

I wonder if people are noticing that democracy as a system is more in crisis than in past elections, and that its ineffectiveness and irrelevance are increasing.

Some signs-
really low voter turnout

nearly 50/50 split on a lot of state ballot measures

why the hell is it appropriate for voters, including non-union members, to decide what can be done with union members' dues? that stuff should be decided by the rank and file in each union, local by local!

I think that the influence of absentee ballots is really significant. In my family, going out to vote was a big deal- it was part of a tradition. (the polling station was nearly 2 miles away, at the elementary school that I had attended for 3 years, so we'd drive, and have to look for parking, and it'd be dark out in november, and my mother would go into the booth and pull the curtain closed...) People are using absentee ballots as a way to avoid going in to vote, (further) distancing themselves from the decisionmaking process. Are people becoming alienated and thus avoiding voting, or is the bullshit alienating them?

Sigh. Oh, on Forum on Monday (on NPR), I heard an interview with a couple who had just published a critical biography of Mao. One of the things they said about the people's revolution was that the workers (people) were totally burnt out from long-ass meetings. this is why I continue to say that there has to be some other way to make decisions. Consensus is exhausting, and you have to be trained on how to use it. And if it's not done properly, it is TORTURE! We'll come up with something eventually.

What a hypocrite

2005-11-03T00:16:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm talking about me! I went out and got a flu shot today (while I was at the doctor). It's fitting- I had one the first winter I lived here, and maybe this will be my last. My first winter here was my sickest ever, and started me off on 8 years of being sick all the time. So maybe this will be my healthiest ever.

Maybe I'll figure out a place to move to that has a huge and sunny yard, deal with my other health problems, find time to work out 2 hours a day, grow rad food, get some kind of a healthy relationship going on with some kids (well, the main problem is usually parents), and figure out some satisfying political and personal work to do. Add some hunnys to the list of sweeties. Read more books. Visit the motherland, and my dad, too. Travel to Puerto Rico. Ok, there ARE still reasons to live.

Maybe sometime soon I'll stop coughing till I pee my pants. But I can't hold my breath- the doctor warned me that i could be coughing for 6 months (she mumbled something about reactive lung, but i think it's usually called Reactive Airway Disease). Lovely!

But anyhow, would/will I get my kids vaccinated? You want to believe in modern medicine. You just want to. But it kills some people!

Two words: Ha and HA!

2005-10-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

Mk, so I have a nasty flu and wasn't able to attend the annual demonstration that took place today. It was in a different city this year, and as I predicted, there were WAY fewer people this year than before.

It's only an hour or so driving from SF or the East Bay, but I looked up public transit from the East Bay, and it's 2.5 hours and just a bi---it too much money for poor folks. Nice one.

Not sure if I wrote here that it would be smaller or not, but I have just one thing to say: TOLD YOU SO!

I wasn't able to do that much to help build for it, between hating the group and trying to take care of myself and all. And then being so sick this week... but I tell you, if the RCP had put any energy into publicizing it, it would have gotten its usual 400 or so people.

Rest in peace, Lennox Sweeney

2005-10-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

I was so upset tonight when I read this email. I guess I didn't see it when it came in last night because it would have come when I was doing my physical therapy exercises and trying to get my butt to bed. I didn't get to check my email one last time before bed because the power went out and stayed out for 17+ hours.

This email is about an activist from San Jose- Lennox Sweeney. I knew him from the October 22nd Coalition (and I guess from Mumia work as well). He was the sweetest, gentlest, most patient man. He used to drive up from San Jose for O22 meetings in San Francisco every week-- painful, 3 and 4 hour meetings.

I guess that Lennox died this week from a brain aneurism. What a shame. There will be some kind of memorial service for him sometime soon.

I might have tried to go to the vigil, had I known about it in advance.

Honor the memory of Lennox Sweeney by doing what he would be doing tomorrow:

Saturday Peace Vigil
October 15, 12:00 noon

at the corner of
Stevens Creek & Winchester, San Jose

End the War & Occupation!
Bring the Troops Home Now!

-------------
This email message was sent by Lennox to the SBM list last week.
From: Lennox Sweeney
To: sbm@lists.riseup.net; VFP 101
Subject: [SBM] Help - Winchester peace vigil
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 23:40:36 -0700

Attendence at the Saturday/Sunday peace vigil at Winchester and Stevens Creek has
fallen to about 2-3. David Ledesma, the mainstay of this vigil, is off to Hawaii
this weekend and next for a mix of business and pleasure.

I feel a little awkward out there alone and would appreciate any support. I'll be
out from 11:30 to 1:30 Saturday and Sunday, Oct 8, 9, 15, 16 (and beyond) with some
extra signs.

(This location has good visibility and LOTS of cars)

Yes, Lennox, we will be there this Saturday, 10/15/05
to Honor your Spirit of Joy and Resistance to WAR!

Note: Lennox Sweeney passed away on Thursday, October 13, 2005.
Diane of VFP 101, sent out this email on October 13, 2005:

Subj: [peace-council] VFP member Lennox Sweeney has left us
Date: 10/13/2005 3:50:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time

We sure will miss him.

At 1:45 pm today, October 13, 2005, our wonderful Lennox Sweeney was taken off life
support. He was surrounded by love and friends holding his hand when he passed
quietly a few minutes later.

As a very active member of Veterans for Peace, Lennox sometimes seemed to be
everywhere, with his signs and his car prominently covered with bumper stickers.

If you missed the previous e-mail, Lennox suffered a brain aneurysm yesterday
morning. He spent the day in ICU on life support, and today's action was pretty much
expected.

When I think of Lennox, I picture him always smiling.

A party to celebrate his life is being planned, possibly for the weekend after
Veterans' Day.

Sharon Kufeldt can be contacted with questions about any of this - 650-799-1070.

"This is the true joy in life- the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself
as a mighty one: The 'being' a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little
clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself
to making you happy."
George Bernard Shaw

----------------------------------------
(South Bay Mobilization)
Our postal address is
P.O. Box 641163
San Jose, California 95164
United States

So many groups are having problems right now

2005-10-14T01:20:00.000-07:00

This one group I know of has finally realized that it is run authoritarianly. Not just the people who apparently stormed out of their meeting, but other people, too. Pretty exciting. It's hard when you have a nonprofit person who is paid to work on the project, and everyone else is regular volunteers.

A group I work with is having major issues- it's supposed to be a coalition, but there are these sectarian anarchists who don't want to work with this middle aged middle class (worker) dude. It's funny how coalitions are. I do think it's important for anarchists to have our own projects, but I mean, we should also figure out ways to work with other people. I am so good at talking the talk.

So anyhow, this dude who I have known and loved for a long time (until we worked together, now we aren't friends anymore) left this project. I am glad and relieved and all that, but I am also sad, because it doesn't solve the problem, help the project, or get him to realize that he's got issues that need to be dealt with. So he's certainly not going to deal with them. And it also doesn't make us friends again. Or does it?

Anyhow, I need to get my butt to bed.

My Report from Webzine 2005

2005-09-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

Yup, so I went to Webzine 2005. Mark and I staffed a table for Indybay yesterday in the "Master's Lounge." I still have to look up why they called it that- the Folsom Street Fair was yesterday, but I don't think that was where the name came from. Maybe it's a d+d thing. It was just the room where organizations and other vendors had tables. I got a free Blogger t-shirt, and I didn't get to talk to the folks from the other blog services.

I met a guy from Audio Blog, the guy from DIY Colo in SF (formerly called "Ghetto Colo," what the hell? Mark and I had a big discussion later about hipsters and the use of the word ghetto. Anyhow, the guy had expensive clothes and gear and we were both rather disgusted- especially mark, since he works with Community Colo), Ryan Junell (one of the Webzine people), a nice guy named David who has a subscription to Faultines and bought an Indybay t-shirt, and Charlie Anders, who is a local bi/trans/queer writer and personality. I also chatted about Linux with a nice geek who reminded me a lot of my old friend Aryeh from college. Dear, dear Aryeh. What ever happened to him?

Anyhow, I of course felt out of place because I didn't have a laptop. Or any money. I do blog, tho, so I felt a bit more ok than I could have. Josh from NYC Indymedia, Sunny from Street Level TV, Pam Pam, a local activist, and Josh Wolf from the Rise Up Network (I still don't understand why he is using that name, when riseup.net does such great things with it), in a panel about using the internet to stick it to the man. Sunny wanted to use the panel to say that the net can't be used that way, but they really talked more about technology, including video (as opposed to the internet), to support activism. There was a bit of talk about access and people having equipment, but that got sidelined into more of a mutual aid discussion (who could help Pam Pam set up a Podcast? I elbowed Mark, and he raised his hand. Sorry, Mark, I know you already have a lot going on). That was the only panel that I got to see. Mark and I were both sick and had a meeting in the east bay, so we had skedaddled by 4:30. We had both spent all of Saturday inside, so it was great to get a bit of sun as we walked to the IMC space.

I'm not sure if it was worth it to go, since I missed the Folsom Street Fair, a garden meeting, going to the gym, and a needed 5 hour nap.

Chicken Rustling in Southwest Berkeley

2005-09-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Missing: 7 Chickens

I arrived at the Ashby Garden to feed the chickens as the sun was going down. There was an eerie silence as I approached the chickens' enclosure. It was like I was in a horror film- I turned my head to the left in slow motion, and didn't see a single roosting chicken in the coops! I looked at the new laying boxes underneath the coops- as if they would all be in there! Nope. The gate to the enclosure was open, and the bucket of food that was used to block the gate open was spilled on the ground. No sign of struggle, and the eggs that we were trying to get the chickens to sit on and hatch were still in the coop. The chickens' food and water containers are all still there.

The chickens are gone. The gate to the garden was locked, so either the person who took the chickens had the combination, or they jumped the fence and handed the chickens off to someone else (one at a time or in a bag or box). There is only one feather on the ground near the gate to the enclosure, so these people clearly knew how to handle chickens. And they likely killed them and cooked them up. They were stolen sometime between 7:30 Weds. night and 7:30 Thursday night. The person who was supposed to feed them on Thurs AM told me tonight that she hadn't done it this morning.

We had had the 6 girls since December of last year, and had only recently gotten the rooster. It seems like the disappearance could be related to the recent arrival of that noisy bastard- I have heard him as early as 4:30 in the morning. There are a few different sketchy characters who we are thinking of as suspects, but how can we really know who to blame or what happened.

photos of the chickens can be seen at http://www.themahtin.com

Garden Update

2005-09-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I staffed a table or two at the Power to the Peaceful Festival (more about that another time). After sleeping 5.5 hours I was up for 18.5, and I only woke up at 11 today because Tomkat called. We had a meeting at the garden scheduled for 3pm, so I was thinking I would try to get over there and back at least once before 3 (hah!).

When I finally went over at 2:45, people were working on the lot next door! Woo hoo! I could sort of see that from my kitchen window, but I couldn't really believe it till I saw it. People were trimming trees, cutting grass, and pulling up weeds. We also collected a lot of trash. We made piles of yard waste all over the place, and then later on, James, Ayala, and I put all the green stuff (mostly from the tree at the front of the lot) in one pile next to the chicken coop. Most of the dried-out grass was brought over to the garden- I put some in the chicken coops and some on the ground in the enclosure, and there's a lot where our strawbale is. The grass had been growing for so long! Once you pulled up the stuff that had grown this year, you found that there are layers of grass underneath it that will have to be turned under. Xander thinks we should plant grain this winter. I agree about the soil building/cover cropping part, but on the other hand, if we grow a grass, how will we know which stuff is weeds and which isn't?!

About that lot...so the thing is, the person who owns it is like dying or something. James has spoken with her son-in-law. He said that if we cleaned it up we (might?) (would?) be able to use it. People got rid of the mattresses that were up in the front on Wednesday. Those mattresses has appeared in the middle of last winter, and occasionally at night one could see folks sleeping on them. The other large piece of waste on that lot is an axle from a car or truck. It looks heavy! So anyhow, apparently James is supposed to meet with the guy sometime this week and show him the work we have done. At that point, my guess is the guy will be like, great, let's put it on the market! Three houses out of 4 on the other side of the street have been for sale at some point in the last few weeks. Or at least the guy could be like, ok, now stay the fuck off our property!

We nearly lost the lot that has the garden on it this week. Apparently people had made an agreement with the owner to maintain an empty house that he owns around the corner. Or at least do the landscaping (?). So since noone had done that in a year or so and I'm sure that James had given him a voicemail number that he doesn't have anymore, he felt pretty secure in leaving a note that we should stay off his property (or whatever it said). Great. People did some cleanup and hauling at the house this week, and I'm not sure if they have talked with the owner since then.

The question of housing security is bad enough, but when it's a garden on a proprerty that could be "developed," things get really, really, insecure. A person could put some nice little low-income apartments or yupster lofts on there and make a bundle. We've got to talk to the Land Trust about buying these lots. But how would we pay for them?

People did a Cafe' Night at the Long Haul as a benefit for the garden tonight (well, 9/11/05). I didn't make it cuz I ended up being forced to nap.

WTF

2005-09-05T00:17:00.000-07:00

Yah, so in addition to SF MUNI fares going up 25 cents to $1.50 (but fast passes didn't go up and there is a new "Lifeline pass"), AC Transit also went up 25 cents to $1.75 (!!), AC Transit's transbay bus service went up 50 cents, and BART is going to go up from what is it, $1.15 to $1.40 minimum.

When I was checking the schedule for my planned daytrip to Davis last night, I was shocked to discover that the Amtrak fare from near where I live had gone up from $17 to $20. What the HELL! That is one-way! So I decided not to go. $40 to spend less than 12 hours there didn't quite make sense for today.

I did swim about 900 yards for the first time in 11 or 12 years.

This is interesting: "Now is the time!"

2005-09-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

Now is the Time? Now is the Time!
The Potential of the Gulf Coast Crisis: Points for Discussion and Intervention

We wrote this text because we felt the level of discussion regarding the aftermath of hurricane Katrina needs to move beyond the rhetoric of cheering or condemning looters, cheering or condemning the authorities, or simply crying for the victims. "Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening," or "I told you so," or "People are dying!" just send us talking in circles. We want the U.S. (and possibly the world) to launch into the unknown- the total breakdown of the social order- and then continue pushing for a self-organized society.

In wanting this, we encourage drawing out and publicly defending the liberatory activities of the last 6 days and deepening this social rupture by refusing to confine it to the Gulf Coast. Our idea of how: implement concrete forms of solidarity that do not just focus on defense, but on attack.

RIGHT NOW, THE SYSTEM IS EXTREMELY VULNERABLE.

* We are experiencing one one of the largest disruptions of the capitalist economy and the social order since perhaps the L.A.-fueled urban rebellions that rippled across the country in 1992.
* Morale among the authorities is low: One-third of the N.O. police force has deserted and the rest are operating with limited vehicles, fuel, weapons, and communications, National Guardsmen are openly questioning their intervention both in N.O. and Iraq, the N.O. Mayor has broken down publicly...
* Faith and trust in the federal and state authorities is evaporating as aid and rescue resources are strangely absent or diverted. Meanwhile, world watches the starving locals on the nightly news. The National Guard is physically blocking ordinary citizens trying drive aid into N.O.. Bush has his lowest approval rating ever. His rhetoric of 'death to the looters' confuses most people who have, in the last few days, began to sympathize with the looting (see next point). Disgust with the government, and perhaps with government itself, grows.
* Growing defense of unlawful acts. Many everyday Americans are breaking from their lawful routine to justify the looting. As the definition of crime (and survival) shifts, agents of social control begin to weaken.
* A second crisis is threatening the stability of the system: rising gasoline prices. People are asking, when will it stop, who is responsible, and why even pay? Gas theft has skyrocketed and street protests against the hikes are rumbling across the country. This is creating a double crisis and people are mobilizing with the regime up against the wall. Not to mention the military stalemate in Iraq. Can the system be overloaded to the point of collapse? How can we best participate in these crises?

FOLKS IN LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI HAVE RECOGNIZED THIS VULNERABILITY AND ARE ACTIVELY ASSAULTING IT.

* They are physically attacking the social order. The stories of gunfights, arson, and looting keep surfacing: in New Orleans, organized and sporadic attacks on police stations, officers, and National Guard units since the time the hurricane hit (before the flooding) and now fires set to buildings, many of them previously untouchable in the eyes of the poor; and then there is the looting (most notably, guns to carry out further attacks on the system) on a scale far greater than what South Central L.A. experienced in 1992.
* They are undermining capital's dominant social relations. Mass looting throughout the Gulf Coast, some of it quite pre-meditated and some of it outside of the hurricane path. Every account reads as a festive (or nervous) atmosphere with every sector of the population partaking: black, white, Latino, men, women, children, old, young, and even cops and wealthy tourists. The normal forms of exchange have been abandoned and large free markets have been reported on the neutral ground (the median) down some New Orleans streets. And it's not just a big 'fuck you' to those who profit from their needs, but also a defiant stance that everyone is entitled to enjoy themselves- what some would call 'excesses:' beer, televisions, etc.
* The breakdown is spreading: reports of widespread looting in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Biloxi, Gulfport, and Hattiesburg and now signs that Memphis and Houston may soon face unrest with all the refugees from N.O.

IF NOW IS THE TIME, THEN WHAT TO DO? (SOME POINTS TO DISCUSS, MODIFY, AND, OF COURSE, ACT UPON)

* Refugees coming to your town? The most significant difference between the L.A. revolt and that of New Orleans, is that L.A. still exists. So far we have seen looting spread to areas where the refugees are sent, so this seems the most obvious way to expand the attack. People used to one week of not paying for anything (and gunfights with the police) of course find it psychologically difficult to walk into a store and revert back to paying (or obey the police)- any petty thief can tell you this. Here in St. Louis, authorities have decided to house hundreds of refugees in an (not-so-) old county jail. Enough said.
* Target the agencies responsible for the brutal neglect and murder of the people of New Orleans. Salvation Army, Red Cross, FEMA, all U.S. Military branches, etc. (More perpetrators keep being uncovered- e.g. Outback Steakhouse was reported to be serving food to rescue workers but denying food to the refugees in central Louisiana.)
* Provide solidarity with 'insurgents' in N.O. It is a very real possibility that the next week will see the federal government engaged in a guerilla conflict with citizens intent on defending their city. Solidarity could means vocal support, material support, and/or attack on our own terrain to spread the insurgency and weaken the forces of order. Any revolt, no matter how wonderful, will suffocate if it's not spread. Their fight is our fight- refuse to be divided from and condemned by potential comrades.
* Be careful what you take from the media reports. Don't believe the government statements. First-hand accounts and even on-the-ground corporate media reports provide a vastly different story than the official line. And it is those stories that must surface so we can't be divided into bad looters and good looters, armed gangs and rescuers, unemployed and workers, etc.
* Harness the sudden spirit of mutual aid. Outsiders are offering help for the displaced. Feelings of mutual aid not only pervade in the looted street markets of battered N.O., but also in those who were not there. But, as usual, it is mostly misdirected to paternalistic aid organizations (Red Cross and Salvation Army- both of which have abandoned the survivors), though housing offers seem to be bypassing these large organizations.

- a handful of St. Louis' unwanted children of capital
September 3, 2005
------------------------------------

* This is the result of discussions between comrades here in St. Louis over the last 6 days concerning the situation just down-river from us- discussions which will no doubt continue. We want to encourage a breaking out of discussions across the country on the implications and potentialities of the post-catastrophe situation in America. This is a hastily written text that we acknowledge has many gaps. Please help us fill them and share any discussions you have had with comrades in your city, whether it be inside or outside the Gulf region. If you want to respond to us directly, please do so as a 'comment' here:
http://www.stlimc.org/newswire/display/610/index.php

What a day this was

2005-09-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

So it seems like some of the news is contradicting previous news. Were shots really fired at aid workers in New Orleans? Is there martial law or not? (No) The governor did say that people would be shot, but this new National Guard commander dude told people to point their guns down as soon as he landed. Is it true that there is cannibalism?

Mike Ruppert has some rad coverage of how FEMA and the US governments dropped the ball on relief. He also says, "Bottom line: my assessment is that New Orleans is never going to be rebuilt and that US domestic oil production will never again reach pre-Katrina levels." We'll see. My sweetie is a total peak oil/crisis skeptic. It is pretty funny to hear him talk about the news but not have the analysis that there is a problem.

Dr. Mess told me today that either on From the Wilderness or from Greg Palast (no, I think not him), or from Prison Planet or somewhere, he heard that it was weather engineering that brought Hurricane Katrina and its destruction to NOLA and the other areas.

There is also a widely circulated opinion that in addition officials not being ready for this disaster, it is possible that the poor folks in the South were sacrificed. Why did it take Bush two days to respond to the disaster and 4 days to even fly over the affected areas? And five days to visit? He looked so insincere with those women in his press opportunity.

Did Dick Cheney come back from vacation yet?

Check out these Whiteys with guns

It would be interesting to compare how Giuliani and the mayor of New Orleans have reacted to the crises in their cities. I think that the NOLA guy could get re-elected, just cuz he has shown chutzpah, or balls, or cojones, or whatever.

Btw, check out Urban Survival: Replaying 1929 Nice title, huh?

Ah, speaking of economic crises, everyone has made a big deal about SF MUNI fares going from $1.00 to $1.25, and labor problems there. Well, AC Transit (in the East Bay, SF's best suburbs) is going from $1.50 to $1.75. Come on! And we'll still have to pay for transfers. and don't think AC Transit doesn't have labor problems! Maybe AC Transit covers too wide an area (in spite of all the cut and decreased lines in the last few years) for people to organize effective resistance. But is the Muni Social Strike/Fare Strike going to be effective? It's hardly gotten any media coverage, so it's really hard to know.

I'm starting to wonder if anyone is reading this blog

2005-09-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

because i had a bad link to Noel's blog on myspace.

Anyhow, what was I going to say?

Oh, so the October 22nd Coalition in Houston posted to New Orleans Indymedia that they will take people in. They also posted info about their demo they are planning for the National Day of Protest:

"In the wake of Katrina; members involved with the New Orleans chapter of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality who have fled to higher ground in the Houston Metro area are welcomed with open arms....The Halliburton Shareholders Meeting Demonstration. Demonstrating outside the Tomball, TX Community Center where the Ku Klux Klan shows up. The overall malfeasence within the Houston Police Crime Lab and evidence room. Harris County as the death penalty capital in Texas. Rampant police abuse in Galveston, Texas southwest of Broadway and 25th Street. Arrival of the Minutemen. Where will this epidemic end?"

Some of those things are off the topic of police brutality, repression, and the criminalization. They must really have it together to have written their own local call.

The national O22 website is still down, but Houston O22 linked to it in their post. Ha!

Is it anarchy or chaos that the media is referring to?

2005-09-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

I wrote this in response to this ignorant post on this NO metroblog site, but I am getting an error when I try to publish it.

The blogger said, "At some point, people in charge have got to come to their senses and realize that anarchy has reached the point beyond which order can be restored through civilized means and now must be restored at the point of gun by people willing to pull the trigger."

This is not anarchy. Of course people raping and killing each other is not cool, but it needs to be said that anarchy is not uncool, and raping and killing does not equal anarchy.

I am getting really upset about people saying that what is going on in New Orleans is "anarchy." Even the definition on dictionary.com is better than what people are hinting at. Dictionary.com says:
"1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose."

It defines chaos in the following way:
"1. A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
2. A disorderly mass; a jumble: The desk was a chaos of papers and unopened letters.
3. often Chaos The disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe.
4. Mathematics. A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions.
5. Obsolete. An abyss; a chasm."

Read more about what anarchy is, and "What could the social structure of anarchy look like?" - "This empowerment of ordinary citizens through decentralisation and direct democracy will eliminate the alienation and apathy that are now rampant in the modern city and town, and (as always happens when people are free) unleash a flood of innovation in dealing with the social breakdown now afflicting our urban wastelands."

Unfortunately, the relief organizations and governments in the US have rescue and relief operations "organized" to be so top-down as to be ineffective. The Red Cross can have all its oneneighborhoodpermajorcitybeingpreparedfordisaster programs that it wants, but we will still not be prepared for the next major disaster.

Going in and shooting the people who have guns or are helping themselves to the remaining goods in stores in a destroyed city is not going to change the confusion, sadness, homelessness, disease, hunger, and thirst that these people are facing. Getting them out of New Orleans, out of harm's way, and into stable housing will help a lot. Giving them a sense of empowerment would also be a nice idea. Right now they can't do anything for themselves except wait and die. That's not right.

Isn't it just awful?

2005-09-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

So y'all should read this blog regularly: The Interdictor. Updates from New Orleans.

I have hardly watched the news about this situation all week, because it is just so unbearably awful. I mean, so many people are homeless, jobless, etc. now. Yesterday on Talk of the Nation I heard them say that some people are posting to New Orleans Craig's List from several states away to say that they will take people in. Isn't that sweet? Esp. when they write from states that don't have a lot of people of color. Heh. Much better than the demonization of people looting in N.O. I mean, hello, most people only have emergency rations for a day or two, if they have any. So they need to loot so they have water and food! And batteries for their radios.

Something that makes me mad about all this is our focus on New Orleans- I think it's because it's the city that white folks have heard of. What will become of Mardi Gras? Maybe Berkeley Mardi Gras will become a more important celebration now...ah, the wingnuttiness. Or maybe it will be way different next year.

But anyhow, that whole region is really poor, right? Who is going to get those people's stories out? I want to go interview people and take pictures!!! Oh, btw, New Orleans Indymedia is being updated more now.

Anyhow, I have to go clean the house of an insurance adjustor lawyer guy. I guess he will be out of town all fall after this, as soon as he can go assess the monetary damages.

Down with the Bobetariat!

2005-08-30T01:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have had it. Rita called me tonight and told me that she has decided to pay someone to work on the O22 website.

i am learning how to use drupal in my free time, but for now the local October 22nd website looks pretty bad. Well, it is coming along. Rita has decided to pay a guy to work on it. i don't know anything about css, so if he is a professional web designer and can deal with the drupal shit or just redesign it from scratch, whatever. Why didn't she have him do it from the beginning? I often serve in this role of getting things started, and then the people who should have been doing them from the beginning cuz they are good at them take over and things look better. Sounds good, right?

She is going to pay him one day's salary from her job, with her own money. He will work on our local site and the national site, which is down in part because it was hacked. Ha!

Anyhow, he is a refuse and resist and rcp person, so again everything stays in the hands of the party. FUCK THAT.

My other problem with her decision is: If only we could all get paid to do activism. I don't even make enough most months to pay my rent. And I spend so much of my free time on this shit...anyhow...

How do you disassociate yourself from a group, but not from the work that you do?

I told ibm my predicament and he said, "there are other organizations in the bay area doing anti-police brutality work." I think the answer to this is to stop doing what I was doing. nobody does quite what i was doing, in terms of pulling together all this stolen lives stuff, but junya or someone can jump in, i guess...i suppose i will wrap some things up and tell her in person sometime soon. i have to give her back some things. so i guess i should wait to tell her in person? maybe i should just get thru what i can tomorrow and just stop.

i do like to (do outreach) table(s), but not by myself and all that like yesterday. i miss organizing, but lately i have been wondering if i am not good at it, or if i am out of the habit, or what. i want to work with people plural, not work for fucking rita. i complained to stephanie yesterday. she is the head of the rcp in sf- afaik, cuz she was. she brushed me off. she said something like, "we have different priorities at different times." if i could start the coalition over without the rcp...but no.

Did I mention that yesterday when rita was on stage talking about the coalition's work, she had a big roll of world can't wait stickers and she said something at the end of her speech about world can't wait? ARGH!

Lots going on

2005-08-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I made a new friend this week, Tami the Cosmic Gardener. She is a rad activist in Vancouver, BC. I just finished reading a book that was based in BC, called Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator.

Today I tabled for October 22nd at the Chicano (Xican@) Moratorium observation in SF. During the October 22nd speakers (I think it was the Ayala family, Mesha from the Idriss Stelley Foundation, and Rita from October 22nd (who also represented the annoying "world can't wait until the rcp's november 2nd demonstration"), I was having an in-person chat with ibm from THE OTHER SITE. It was a nice talk.

We didn't have any info about the local coalition that people could take home with them. What the fuck?! And I couldn't get ahold of Rita for HOURS, even though she had said she would be at the park all day. Then she wouldn't go to the office to get the frickin flyers. I was trapped at the table because there was noone who could take my place. Noone! I asked Rita's husband (who was at the world can't wait to increase the boredom table) to keep an eye on the table while I went to the Barrio Defense Cmte/Justice for Julio Ayala table to see if they had flyers about October 22nd, and when I came back he didn't have his eye on the table at all. Hello, the books and t-shirts, and even the buttons, cost money! I brought it just enough money to pay the vendor fee.

Anyhow, early on in the afternoon, this older black guy comes up to the table and says he wants a Stolen Lives book, but doesn't have the money with him. I have him write down his contact info. And guess what name he writes? Bobby Seale. No Fucking Way! I had never seen him up close- I guess that's why I didn't recognize him. So I like begged him to shake my hand.

Sometimes I think I should leave the coalition or we should disband it. I could tell her we are disbanding it and forming a new group that is not under the leadership of the RCP. We could try to keep the same phone number and office, and call it the "Bay Area Coalition to Stop Police Brutality," or some acronym that spells out BayCop. But I am hesitant to do it. It would require a lot of work, a lot of organizing with people I haven't worked with before, a lot of long meetings...

Another idea I have is to set up a coalition to stop police, or a coalition against police, or a coalition against law enforcement. Or something like that. An explicitly anti-police network. It could be a place where people share ideas and ask for help on projects that are about living without police- Copwatch, security organizations, etc. And talk about or do things related to resisting the police state. Somehow or other. I just would want the right people to do it with.

The other thing that happened today was that when I was leaving Rainbow Grocery with my housecleaning supplies, Jess from the garden called. She said that they had talked about getting a rooster from Spiral Gardens, and that there was one available that very minute, and was I opposed to getting one? Well, why the hell not? Everything is a learning experience, right? So I got to the garden a Sunday evening's BART trip and lots of walking later (an hour and a half?) and there is a rooster in the garden!! Apparently he had already raped all 6 chickens. He took forever to calm down at bedtime. In fact, he got up on the roof of the coops and... flew over the fence. He went into the little hothouse and from the outside it looked like he was bouncing off the walls. Poor okra plants. James showed him who the man around the garden is and locked him in the coop (where he tried to rape chickens who were roosting). So for an hour as the sun went down (and after), we added about 30 inches of fence (vertically) all the way around the chickens' enclosure. Sigh.

I can't wait to go see him tomorrow! do roosters eat something other than laying formula?

PS- when we left the garden, we locked our new combination lock for the very first time. what will the community's response be? stay tuned!

"You gotta lock that down!"

2005-08-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I have a bad tv-watching habit. Well, I found something really funny that is relevant to our community garden. In one of the more amusing episodes of the TV show "Arrested Development," Jason Bateman (yum!)'s character Michael tells a guy who has a hot wife, "You gotta lock that down!" The woman comes on to Michael eventually, and when her husband finds out, Michael says, "I told you you had to lock that down!" Well, I thought it was funny. Especially since Michael doesn't usually objectify women.

Well, guess what? We are getting a lock for the front gate at the community garden. And guess what else? It's fine by me!

I've been feeling nervous when I go over there at night or when I am there past sundown...a (white, btw) "woman" all alone in a "bad neighborhood." We've been starting to have kids come in by themselves or with all of their friends. There must be a new halfway house or something in the neighborhood, because I've been noticing some dissheveled guys walking around talking to themselves, and one of them comes into the garden sometimes. Just as it's getting dark. He just sits there and smokes and sometimes talks to himself. Several times, I have gotten there at 8 in the morning and found someone who I don't recognize sleeping in the gazebo. The gazebo is well-constructed, but it is on top of a hole. It's a deep hole. It flooded about 4 times last winter. Imagine 8 feet of water just sitting there, rotting the steps and the edges of the hole. I thought that was hilarious, cuz I had tried to warn the people who dug it that that would happen. I don't go into the gazebo. But some people sleep on it.

Anyhow, this summer, some girls who are about 10-12 years old started coming by, and then some boys. They are always harassing the fish in the fish ponds (a hottub and a pink tub). The area around the hottub is not stable, and I am always worried that they are going to fall on the blackberry brambles or fall in! One Sunday, Jess told a kid that he could take a fish home- I had always been telling them no, cuz if one kid can have one, they all should be able to have one, and eventually the people who didn't get a fish won't have anymore fish to visit at the frickin garden! I predicted that in a week there wouldn't be anymore fish. I guess I was wrong.

Anyhow, sometimes people get to the garden and all of the plants have been pulled out of the hottub. Or sometimes there is a squash on the ground in an area where there are no plants. Or there are broken bottles near the bee boxes. While I was in Europe, people started finding shit in weird places, including in the hole (ha ha!), and needles- I think in the gazebo and in the hole. I have lost count of how many times I have gone into the garden and found the water running, flooding out a bed or, perhaps worse, watering the path!

People are also bothered by how sometimes on Sundays when people pick food and put it out front, one person will take all of the food without giving anything back. Well, we're not exactly asking for anything in return (I think it is better to let people come in and pick stuff themselves). But we do have water bills. A lot of days people take all of the eggs without contributing to water or chicken feed. People don't even bring the food scraps for our compost. But Jess keeps saying she's going to make signs. I don't want to be the bad guy to have to put a sign on every little thing in the garden, especially since I don't have any artistic skills, so I think people will have a problem with every little thing I do.

So James and Ayala are bringing a lock. It is a combo lock (easy to cut, note that I wrote this here but did not express this concern out loud). A sign will be put up. It will say to come by on a Weds. or a Sun. and meet us. Hopefully anyone who gives out the combo will show people how to turn the water on and off. I guess people also want to put a lock on the mailbox. If the water is still a problem, the little wheel thingie will be taken off the water spigot and we will have to use pliers. (I will have to get my own, cuz I know that this would be a fucking disaster!)

I wonder if the kids will climb over the gate, or if someone will cut the lock, or if the fence will be cut, or if someone will burn down the garden, or...there are so many things that could happen there that would make it so we would lose the garden. Imagine if something were to happen to one of the kids?! I worry about that all the time...

But anyhow, this whole idea of us mostly white gardeners putting a lock on the "community" garden in a predominately black and latino garden that had, less than 2 years ago, been an abandoned lot, just cracks me up! A lot of times I feel like we are acting like a charity instead of like a community project (putting food out rather than letting people come get it for themselves, not focusing on community outreach to get people to do stuff, having a difficult-to-negotiate entrance and an unsafe space with tools and glass and god knows what else all over the ground)... (If you) give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever. Ah, wasn't that sung by a nice, happy, funky hip hop group called Arrested Development?

More RCP Weirdness

2005-08-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

Well, this is odd. Looking at Nion Bay Area's website, linked above, I see:
Sat. and Sun.
Oct. 22 - 23
"On the Frontlines": A regional and national counter military recruiting conference. A joint effort of the Bay Area Military Out of Our Schools project, and the national Campus Anti-War Network. UC Berkeley Campus. Details TBA.

That is so weird. An RCP front group scheduling a non-police brutality event for October 22nd? It is bad enough that "the world can't wait" until November 2nd. (I wrote a story about yesterday's No Theocracy Day protest on Indybay's government and elections page last night, since we had a post of photos)

I guess this means that the October 22nd Coalition is on its own? Usually some folks who work with NION or help it out for big events are at O22, but I guess that's not going to be the case this year.

They really disgust me, but I like the work that I am doing with the Stolen Lives Project. It'd be great if more people would help out (some folks like Junya do keep lists that I can add to the one I am working on, and more people are starting to post recent deaths to lists).

Oh, did I mention that there is a new anti-taser list, Ban TASERS Now, that Mesha started publicizing last week?

I just finished reading ANOTHER book!

2005-08-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading the book Yo! by Julia Alvarez. It was a bit hard to get into at first, especially since it has been like 6 months since I read How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. It's not just that- sometimes she writes from the perspective of an Anglo-American but the phrases that they say are Englishisms of Spanish language idioms! It gets me a bit confused and makes me wish I were reading the book in Spanish, even though it was written in English.

The book is about Yo (pronounced "Jo," or Yolanda (although yo means I in English, which attests to the biographical nature of this book and the one that preceded it). Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different person in Yo's life. I particularly enjoyed some chapters, such as the one by the maid's daughter, and her own mother, and...the best chapter was the stalker. It was the second to last chapter, with the last chapter being her dad tying everything back together. Her loved ones make her out to be the most inconsistent person around (more so than me!), so the structure makes sense. I would recommend this book to people more for the structure than for the writing or the story itself.

Anarchist Chick Seeks Fellow Anarchists to Organize Against Police Brutality

2005-08-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Check out this announcement from Books Not Bars:

[“No More Lost Lives” Memorial Sept. 5, 2005

This Labor Day, please join us for a very important and special memorial event.
Last year, on September 5, 2004, Dyron Brewer died in the CYA’s Chad youth prison.
We are marking this horrific event and honoring Dyron’s life with a mass memorial
and march. The “No More Lost Lives” memorial event will be held in Stockton (home
of the Chad prison) on Monday, September 5, 2005 from 12 PM to 3 PM...]

Ever heard of the Stolen Lives Project? You'd almost think that Books Not Bars hasn't. But of course they have. And that really pisses me off.

I am always so offended when the folks at EBC/Books Not Bars/whatever organize events and don't inlcude October 22nd. I don't know if you know the history between Van Jones and the Mark Garcia family (I worked on that family's case for over a year before anyone in the Coalition told me! I was so pissed when I found out, cuz it's good to know these things), but apparently Van worked with the Coalition until shortly before I joined it, and basically his folks have spoken at our events since then but we are never invited to speak at theirs.

Doesn't No More Lost Lives sound a lot like the chant "No More Stolen Lives?"

I feel like this is the kind of event we need to have the walls at, but of course they are so out of date and we have no transportation and not enough people to set them up, and...

But basically, there should be a group in the Modesto area that's like October 22nd and is organizing to bring this issue out and not demonize people who are killed by the cops (the fallout after Andres Raya was killed comes to mind- that was a great chance to expose how bad the war is, and how he quite literally brought the war home...)

Ugh, I just get so frustrated how Rita can communicate so much with folks 5 hours away in Fresno but not want to push the issue of going to Stockton (~3 hours away, and we've got Danny Garcia in Modesto) and bringing the walls and the book and encouraging people to organize a demo for October 22nd... There is an anarchist group, DAAA, that does some PB-related work, but we don't communicate directly with them.

I think I am going to start really talking to people about getting together a local anarchist police brutality group that could support Stolen Lives.

-Mahtin

Heard about a cool writer

2005-08-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hm, I tried to publish this on Saturday, but it didn't save right...

Yesterday, KPFA shows Living Room and Hard Knock Radio both had interviews with writer Danyel Smith. I was really impressed by how intelligent and articulate she is. She knows a lot about a lot of things. I guess she grew up with a parent in the music industry? So anyhow, I thought I would link to Danyel Smith's Blog, Naked Cartwheels. I look forward to reading her books.

Apparently her book "Bliss" deals with a career woman and her struggle over deciding whether or not to have an abortion. Interesting.

New anarchist news site?!

2005-08-04T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hm, I was surfing the SF Bay Anarchists website just now after looking up Anarchy Magazine's Action Camp, and I came across this new Anarchist News website (beta). I was on the phone with Dean at the time (still am), and he was like, "in place of A-Infos?!" Good point! A-Infos is still there.

There are also other sites like the delicious Infoshop.org, which I don't look at nearly often enough. Another site that I rarely look at, but should, is Resist! Corporate Media page and the InterActivist Info Exchange. And yet I look at US Indymedia to get US News, as in news from Indymedias all over the United States, several times per day.

I did read Jennifer Whitney's article What's the Matter with Indymedia?, which was in Lip Magazine, though I still don't see it on their website. Instead, it is on the AlterNet website, which I also never look at.

Local organizing crisis, or opportunity?

2005-08-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Rita just called to report back from the October 22nd Coalition meeting. So there were a bunch of family members of people who've been killed by the cops, some long-time police brutality activists, and a few newer people. These family members tend to be on the younger, working class side. One woman's new husband is a comedian, and he suggested that there be like 3 comics. Overall, Rita had to struggle to get people to agree to have speakers- they agreed on three, and will invite Amnesty International (Mona is cool), Samina (American Muslim Voice), and the October 22nd Coalition (not a lot of possibilities there, but let's try to not have Rita this time). The speakers would be at the beginning of the event, and then there would be performers. Some names thrown out were Mystic (she's cool, I've heard her a lot on Hard Knock Radio, but I can't remember if she does any police-related stuff), Cool Cats/Kool Kats (who is this?), and Rita can't remember who else. The rest would be all families. This just cracks me up, cuz every year there are 10 times as many speakers as the crowd can bear.

The mission statement of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation is The National Day of Protest was initiated by a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals. We came together out of our concern that the peoples resistance to Police Brutality needed to be taken to a higher level nationwide.

The National Day of Protest aims to bring forward a powerful, visible, national protest against police brutality and the criminalization of a generation. It aims to expose the state's repressive program. It aims to bring forward those most directly under the gun of Police Brutality AND to also reach into all parts of the society--bringing forward others to stand in the fight against this official brutality. And the National Day of Protest aims to strengthen the peoples' organized capacity for resistance in a variety of ways.

So the problem with their vision of the event is that you are not guaranteed that the politics of the day will get out there- it is about STOPPING police brutality, REPRESSION, and the CRIMINALIZATION of youth/youth culture. About this part about "bringing forward others to stand in the fight against this official brutality": This is partly about building the movement, but is also about giving people who are doing work to stop police brutality a place to speak.

The coalition has been really weak the last few years- partly cuz Rita's organizing style is not about collective building, and partly because the Coalition is not so sexy, and partly because damn near every political group is in crisis these days (except maybe for the RCP, which is what Rita and a lot of former October 22nd activists have focused on the last several years...now they are working on this project called Drive Out the Bush Regime, ugh). I actually left the coalition for a few years, but it's hard to stay away from such an important issue, and frankly, there aren't any local anarchist groups that I know of that do specifically anti-police organizing, or the awesome research that we do in the Stolen Lives Project.

Anyhow, the organizing for this event has been taking place in San Jose, where there has been a lot of police brutality lately, but there is not an October 22nd Coaltion (ie, there is no RCP based there). The Bay Area Office of the October 22nd Coalition is based in San Francisco. So ultimately, it might make more sense for us to have an event in San Francisco, Oakland, or Berkeley (transit accessible).

How to save this situation? Stack the meeting with people like me and 10 RCP people? Organize our own event up here? Let the event go on as it is?

If the event is to go on as it is, there are some ways to deal with this situation:
1. make sure that there are a lot of banners and signs that state the message of the day right behind and next to the performers? no, there is no easy way to do this
2. figure out what the politics of the coalition really are and talk them up with the family members who are going to be speaking? possible
3. build the website so it really gives people a sense of what 1022 is? need web designers
4. have a lot of people in the crowd talking up what the day is about? no, the RCP will be too busy selling papers and building for November 2nd.
5. organize some participatory events (plural) like a reportback/sum up/what to do next and a speakout, for shortly after the event, and publicize them like mad at the event.

Hey, How Come Noone Ever Told Me About BlogHer?

2005-07-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

So this weekend is the BlogHer Conference, which is all these women bloggers getting together to talk about women blogging. It's today in Santa Clara, that's what makes me extra sad about not knowing about it! (I'm what, like 60 miles away?)

This is from the Political Blogging Grows Up workshop:

1. Does it hurt the voters/public that the current political echo chamber (blog and otherwise) is male dominated?

2.Do women political bloggers have a responsibility to choose an agenda and further it? Does any political blogger, for that matter?

3. Or are people sick of agenda-talk and echo chamber-talk and just want some practical advice on how to get their individual voices heard, posts linked to and perhaps even someday their own little punditry moments on TV or the major Op-Ed pages of the world?

There are tons of women blogging about politics and how it affects their lives. So, what do some of you want to talk about?

Oh, well, I will continue blogging in isolation. At least I'm on Indyblogs and Anarchoblogs now...

Compost how-to

2005-07-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

Composting at the community garden I work with (it smells so bad right now cuz the people who I've taught to do it are never around, and noone who does try to make it in my absence can bother to ask what they should do). Sigh! Does this make sense to you?

If you are dropping compostable materials off, please put them into buckets and put lids on top (not too tight). You could put dirt on top of the stuff in the bucket to keep the smell down. Do not leave cardboard boxes or plastic containers other than large buckets in the garden- we have no trash or recycling service, and in the winter, boxes can get pretty gross as they start to break down.

You don't have to put the compostables into a compost bin. You can just leave them in buckets. The chickens love corn cobs, apples, and not-rotten leafy greens. You can put them on the ground in the pen, but do not put anything other than chicken feed into the coops.

Please don't put compost into bins unless you have read and understood all of the below.

No grass or other weeds. Please, no bread, milk products, or meat- these can stink really bad and/or attract rodents.

There are 6 bins. The one on the far right is the oldest compost, which should be ready for use in the garden (or close to it!). You might want to pick through it for rubber bands, avocado and peach pits, and the like before you use it. Sometimes there are branches or other large objects that could go thru the compost again.

1. Shift the other 5 bins from left to the right:

First, stir each of the 6 bins with a pitchfork. Check to make sure that bin 6 is solid- bang any pieces that are out of place back into place. If there isn't a dirt pile anywhere in the garden, you might want to shovel a bucket or two's worth of compost to save for later. Then, using a shovel, start with bin 5 and move its contents (as much as will fit without spilling out) into bin 6. You will probably want to take apart the stacking layers as you go lower and lower. You might find some worms in the compost, but overall it is probably pretty dry. Then move the contents of bin 4 into bin 5. By the time you get to bin 3 or 2 you might find some smelly stuff- use a sharp shovel to chop up any large pieces. Throw in some dirt or finished compost, especially on top, to help soak up the wet, smelly stuff. Add dry matter such as straw as needed.

2. Start a new compost:
Check that bin 1 is not falling apart. The side panels usually start to stick out when the shovel has hit them a few times, so you want to make sure they are in tight. Get your shovel. If empty buckets are available, put dirt or finished compost into 1 or 2 and straw into 1 or 2, depending on how many trips around the garden you want/have time to take. Throw some dirt and straw into the bottom of bin 1. Dump the contents of a bucket into the bin. Chop its contents up with the shovel. Throw in a bit of straw and/or dirt depending on how wet it is, and throw in another bucket. I usually add straw and/or dirt about every 2 buckets. At the end, throw some dirt on top, stir a bit (pitchfork) and then throw more dirt on top. This way it won't smell.

3. Rinse the buckets VERY well so they don't stink or attract flies. Don't dump the water into ponds in garden. Don't put on starts or young plants. I sometimes dump the water at the ends of beds, and a bucket or two into bin 1 and 2 if they aren't too wet. Leave them upside-down so they can drip onto the ground. When they are dry (next day) stack most of them in some out of the way place.

argument with the middle class muni people

2005-07-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

little something I wrote yesterday.

Kevin Keating had told me that these people are bougie assholes, and even though I've been on their email list for a while, I hadn't thought they were so bad.

Until I saw their lack of understanding of anarchism, tactics, and strategy.

That's how it is in these top-down groups- people don't get to think for themselves! They don't read about other people's thoughts or anything like that. They don't think beyond their own little yahoogroup, where the person who runs Rescue Muni tells them what's up- what meetings they should go to, what form of protest to take, etc.

People have responded to my email, so maybe I will try to compile some of them...nah, at the bottom is the url of their yahoogroup. Read for yourself.

To: rescuemuni@yahoogroups.com
From: "La Mahtin"
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 13:10:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [rescuemuni] what the social strike is about- not smashing windows, but working together

Technically, the social strike people and anarchist
action (the organizers of the anti-g8 action this
month) are not the same group.

I think it is really gross to see how much you people
condemn the actions of a few people at this protest
without considering the fact that the social strike
group just has different views than yours. I have
never been to a meeting of the social strike group, so
I can't say for sure that they are all anarchists.
Since they are working with some of the MUNI drivers,
I would have to guess that they are not. This means
that you cannot correctly equate the social strike
group and the anarchist action group. They are not
the same group, and they do not use the same tactics
(or strategy).

The social strike group has different ideas of what
the problems are in Muni and how to solve them.
Anarchists are not violent street gangs (did you know
that many people who do "property destruction," ie,
window smashing or spraypainting, don't see these
actions as violent, because people and animals are not
hurt? Really, when you think about it, these actions
contribute to the GDP, as the windows have to be
manufactured and installed in the replacement process.
Also, not all people who engage in property
"enhancement" are anarchists. In Europe, a lot of
them are socialists and communists. In the US, a lot
of them have no defined political beliefs).

The social strike people don't go around beating
people up (yes, one cop was hurt at the anti-G8
protest, but noone knows the full story of what
happened, and again, that was not a social strike
action)- instead they go around giving out flyers and
talking about the politics of what they see is wrong
with MUNI. They are trying to organize the riders and
the drivers to come together to take action to demand
changes and to stop a fare increase.

Is this true or false?: The cost of living is going
up and up and up and wages are not. It's true, and
the increase of MUNI fares is just one aspect that is
easier to identify before it happens, and to organize
around. My guess is that this is why this issue was
chosen. One of the organizers in particular (whom I
know personally) has also been inspired by past
movements to fight fare increases.

Bear in mind that it took thousands of people, a
period of years, and the deaths of some protesters in
the 1800's to win the 8-hour day (google Haymarket
martyrs for more info). These people, whether you
might think their philosophy is anachronistic, or
idealistic, or wrong, are trying to organize along
those lines. Yeah, we don't all have an 8-hour day or
enough wages compared to expenses (or maybe 99% of the
people on this list do, but bear in mind that you are
in the minority), so maybe it's time to start
organizing again.

If you disagree, then avoid the social strike protests
and meetings. But don't talk shit about groups and
movements that you don't know anything about.

You may be wondering who I am: I am a jaded anarchist
queer female, 30 years old, who gardens, rides her
bike everywhere, owns a small business, and is an
editor at http://www.indybay.org. I don't currently
work with any explicitly anarchist organizations
(indymedia is not an anarchist organization).

--- Aleksandr Prodan wrote:

> Ignoring them is the best way to deal with this. If
> you reply to them,
> they will only feel powerful. It's just like dealing
> with a kid who's
> wanting attention. If you give it to him/her,
> s/he'll continue to act
> up. If you ignore him/her, s/he'll calm down,
> eventually. I personally
> feel that this is how they should be dealt with.
>
> Alex
>
> On 7/23/05, gerstle@mindspring.com
> wrote:
> > These people are true believers. Those who
> disagree with them are racists of
> > the bourgeois class who want to gentrify the
> neighborhoods' of people of
> > color and are tools of the capitalist oppressors.
> They are going to cause as
> > much chaos, disruption and damage to local transit
> as possible on September
> > 1st. Those who oppose them will be "autonomously
> targeted." Their behavior
> > is fairly easy to predict. They are basically a
> violent street gang that
> > uses big words.
> > steve
> >
> >
> > " The police, themselves servants to the ruling
> class-initiated the night's
> > violence as they physically pushed marchers,
> brutally hit dozens with
> > batons, and made arrests using unreasonable and
> excessive force. Police
> > repression was met with resistance; multiple cop
> car windows were smashed
> > and there were reports of smoke bombs being thrown
> at cops. Although the
> > bourgeois media sensationalized the report of an
> injured officer, they
> > failed to note that every day in the Mission
> district and all over this
> > white supremacist society, poor people of color
> are brutalized by the
> > police. Both the police and prison-industrial
> complex exist to uphold this
> > system of white supremacy and social control. "
> >
> > " Corporations which were autonomously targeted
> for economic sabotage via
> > property destruction and spray painted messages
> explaining the actions, by
> > militant protestors included:
> >
> > Two Wells Fargo Banks and a Bank of America ATM:
> Banks are operated by the
> > rich to coordinate the imposed wage system and are
> another method of
> > exploiting the working class and making the rich
> richer. Furthermore, these
> > two banks are direct investors in the Iraq War,
> which has led to the death
> > of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and around 2,000
> U.S. soldiers.
> >
> > Kentucky Fried Chicken: This fast food corporation
> makes enormous profits
> > off of the daily speciesist enslavement, torture,
> and extermination of
> > thousands of animals. Its workers are forced to do
> high stress tasks for
> > poverty-wages.
> >
> > PG&E: The racist, environmentally destructive
> electric company which
> > operates a power plant that has, for years, been
> poisoning the poor,
> > predominantly African-American community of
> Bayview-Hunter's Point. PG&E
> > also continues to tighten its monopoly of the
> City's power through
> > sweetheart deals with the cities elite."
> >
>
http://www.sbindymedia.org/newswire/display/2497/index.php
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tys Sniffen"
> > To:
> > Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 10:22 AM
> > Subject: [rescuemuni] tell them that
> >
> >
> > > Steve, and others,
> > >
> > >
> > > I think you make really good points. You should
> send them to these people.
> > > See what they say.
> > >
> > > 1. Email: info@socialstrike.net
> > >
> > > 2. Phone (Voicemail): 415.267.4801
> > >
> > > 3. Email List (for Organizing):
> > > http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/socialstrike
> > > socialstrike@lists.riseup.net
> > >
> > > 3. Email List (for Announcements/Events):
> > > socialstrike-announce@lists.riseup.net
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------
> > > Tys Sniffen
> > > 415.606.7746
> > > Efficiency Consultant:
>
> > > www.ideamountain.com

Post or read news at http://www.indybay.org and reach a lot more people than by using your listservs

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rescuemuni/

It feels so good to be back!

2005-07-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it felt good at first! But the more I get back to my regular life and my projects, the more I feel that everything is wrong. My projects have a lot of problems. I am not making enough money at my job. The more time I spend at the computer, the more I sneeze and cough and stuff. What's up with that?

It was kind of strange to return to the Bay Area after being in Scotland and find that everything has changed in San Francisco. After the anarchist march against the G8, the police have essentially declared war on anarchists, and the FBI has even gotten involved. This ostensibly to find out who gave a cop a head wound.

In so many other cities around the world, it wouldn't be life-changing for a police officer to be injured at a protest...but not here. The best thing that Anarchist Action can do now is to not have meetings for a while, and to just hold a nice little picnic or three in a very public place (Castro Beach or something).

Well, I am in the middle of supposedly writing a story for the police page, watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," trying to find a job, and getting ready to go to yoga.

No war but the class war, no class but yoga class!

Bombings in London Shock the Country

2005-07-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

I heard about this on the radio, apparently about 2 hours after it happened. What I heard at first was, without the location listed, that a double-decker bus had exploded. I thought immediately of the double decker buses that have been transporting protesters from cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow to protests in Dungavel and Gleneagles. I was almost relieved at first to hear that this happened in London.

But then I thought twice, and remembered how the attacks on September 11th were used to increase "security" and repression of dissent and protest movements in the US. The timing of this, when people are variously protesting and imprisoned all over Scotland, which is in the UK, is terrible.

Apparently all that is known right now is that an "Islamist website" has taken responsiblity for the blasts. Could be Chechen, Palestinian, Iraqi, or....?

I hear that Tony Blair is going to return to London for part of the day and go back to Gleneagles tonight.

Report from the Bog

2005-07-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

So today was the day of the protest at Gleneagles, where the G8 is meeting over the next 2 days. Zak bought our bus tickets last night (apparently a group called G8 Alternative (s) had organized the busses). We were very lucky to have had the foresight to buy the tickets. Zak got out there at 9:30am, and one bus was leaving already- even though they were scheduled to leave at 10. When I got there at 10, he grabbed my hand and started walking fast, explaining as we went. Only people who had tickets were being let onto the buses, and there was a line of hundreds of people down the sidewalk.

There was a lot of discussion between organizers and the police, because the police tried to tell us that we couldn't go to Stirling (where people were camped) or to Gleneagles for our safety. Stirling was apparently raided starting last night and from what the cops said, it was also awful this morning. The cops told us that the march had been cancelled, to which we replied, bullshit! We were determined to leave. The cops tried to stop a bus from leaving, but it got out. Our bus turned on its engine and the people from the sidewalk streamed into the street for an angry confrontation with the cops. The police backed down and we were able to go, but it did not look like any other buses were going to be able to leave. Apparently a violent confrontation ensued and some people were beaten and shot at with something.

The ride to Gleneagles was very tense. There were several police vehicles at every interchange. Once when the buses stopped to let people out to go to the bathroom, police suddenly appeared from somewhere in the woods, and we feared that we would not be allowed to go. We got through, but when we got close to Gleneagles, we discovered a traffic jam, where the police tried to tell us to turn back. We lost a videographer from our bus there- apparently he had decided to get off the bus (I saw him later and he seemed fine). We could see a helicopter over Gleneagles, and we could see the fence, so we felt that we should be able to get off and start the protest!! The bus driver took us on a really long, circuitous route. One man on the bus started to accuse the bus driver and the organizers of being in cahoots with the police!! We went really far from Gleneagles, and eventually the driver let us out. We had to walk about a mile and a half to where we were supposed to be. I have to look up the name of the town that we were walking through- it was a small town that did show signs of having a tourist industry, but they had certainly never seen the likes of 5000 anti-globalization and anti-war protesters on their streets!

We came across an intersection where there were thousands of people with signs pouring into the street. I later figured out that this was the park where the march had begun! We marched and marched. Zak and I got separated when I ran after a contingent to get a photo or some audio or something. I had taken a lot of audio on the bus, and I took some of chants and stuff along the march. We'll see how it came out- I am still very new to the world of audio.

Eventually we got to a point where the march monitors (stewards) were trying to herd us all to the right, but if we went straight we would walk right into the fence that was protecting Gleneagles and the G8. In the spirit of direct action, many of us stood in front of the fence. We hoped that enough people would come together so that we could attempt to pull down the fence- and I intended to get photos of it! Well, we were there forever, and march monitors kept trying to get us to move on to the right. This was an aspect of very poor planning on their part-- of course people would want to get as close to the fence as possible- getting through the fence was our only hope of getting our messages heard! At one point I saw that the march was only two people wide getting through that area.

So some people threw things over the fence, some people shook the fence and pushed it down, and mostly I feared that I was going to be trampled if things got crazy. When Zak found me and told me that the Greek contingent wasn't too far away, and someone else told me that there was stuff going on further down to the right, I decided to go down there. I was glad to do that for my safety, but on the other hand, this area where I had been was a road into Gleneagles, and in the area further down, people had to walk through a field to get to the real fence.

Well, down there on the other end, various people worked on the fence and eventually got it smooshed down so people could walk or hop over it. Eventually people started streaming through- various protesters, socialists, photographers, the Infernal Noise Brigade, the clown bloc (not sure what their name was) and more. I didn't go in in large part because I didn't have boots. Also, I wanted to get back here to the IMC in Edinburgh today.

The police numbers started increasing very rapidly- they were brought in by van, helicopter, and horse. A military helicopter (the kind with propellers in the front and the back) kept flying over us to pick up police from nearby locations and bring them to the other side of the fence. I kept thinking about how US military helicopters fall out of the sky all the time in the US and Iraq. I was so shocked when I saw how many people came out of the helicopter the first time! Zak pointed out that the Chechens have shot down helicopters that have held something like 110 people.

We could see that confrontations and meetings were happening in different areas of the field- there were even some police on our side of the fence. From time to time we would hear drums or the INB. People kept streaming in, and some out, but ultimately it did not seem like a battle that our people could win. It was too dark and cloudy to take very good pictures anymore, so we started to walk away as hundreds more cops were brought in. That was very depressing. We walked back to the park and were told that we should listen to the main stage for instructions about buses. We ate some bread, went to the bathroom, and watched the Rinky Dink bicycle powered and pulled sound system, which kicked East Bay sound systems' asses. (I had heard about the RD from a David Rovics song).

We walked around for an hour, trying to find the bus. It wasn't in teh line with all the other buses, so we assumed we had to walk back to where we had been dropped off. I guess we missed the driver by a few minutes. :/ I was so mad! We eventually begged some Englishpeople for a ride and they brought us to some buses that looked like ours, and had space for more passengers. We rode back to Edinburgh very uneventfully, although we did see a lot of police, and we even saw some dignitaries pass us as they headed towards Gleneagles.

I didn't have time to edit my photos or audio tonight- hopefully tomorrow.

And so this is Scotland

2005-07-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Edinburgh today in the midst of the protests. We almost weren't able to get out of the train station because the protests were right outside. It was all very inconvenient, having the tourist info center closed and all.

Today was a the Carnival of Full Enjoyment in Edinburgh. Some people were dressed as clowns, and at times I saw the Infernal Noise Brigade. It seems that people were trying to march around downtown, but they were continually being blocked in by the police. This went on from when we got in, around 2:30, all the way up to after 7pm, when we went inside. Not sure if the message is getting out there.

Apparently there have been over 50 arrests today. So many police. We couldn't get very close to the blocked-in protesters this evening, but what we could see was that from time to time the cops' shields would flash, as if there were confrontations. It appears to be that sometimes the protesters would be moving a lot, maybe in circles, and that the cops might have been letting people get out of the blocked-in area a few at a time.

We found the IMC fairly easily, but it wasn't clear where to get other info. We stumbled around on two different sets of bad directions to try to find a bookstore that would have bus tickets for tomorrow's protest. We eventually located the infodesk, where there was a bit more info about some things. Outside of that building, there is a big drum circle that includes the INB. It looks like the IMC meeting tonight didn't happen- too bad, cuz we could help with things and would like to get plugged in to covering things/assignments. I guess all the bigwigs were out in the street.

Haven't seen Tristan yet, but have seen some friends and/or lovers of his.

Z is trying to get his photos off of his camera and then maybe we will go see if people are setill out in the street.

Davis kind of rocks

2005-06-13T01:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I've now been to Davis, CA twice to visit my friends who recently moved there (Herman and Shelley and Chris). They are staying in Davis proper whole they wait for the land that they (Shelley) just bought to be vacated by a stubborn alfalfa-farming, Roundup-using tenant. Fortunately, there is 1/3 of an acre that they are using in Davis, and it's like a mile from their apartment.

Things will sure be different when they move onto the land, though- you can't double-dig 65 acres with just a shovel and a pitchfork! And it'd be more like 15 miles instead of 4 to bike to the grocery coop. Did I mention what the sun is like out there? It is somehow stronger- I remember the first time I went to Sacramento. It feels like the sun is piercing your skin, at least at first. And we are all white, so they do everything they can to avoid going out during certain hours.

Anyhow, Chris has mostly been the one to show me around town. We keep using words like: "outrageous," "sick," and "just plain not fair!" to describe conditions there. There are bike paths on SO many of the streets. There seem to be 5 options for how to get from any point A to a point B. There are bike lanes that are lined with black walnuts, and bike lanes that go past streets lined with olive trees. Today we rode past a school, and the park next to it had to have been 2 acres. SICK! I mean, I would almost send my kids there (but I don't have any and I plan to homeschool).

There is lots of farmland around Davis, and UC Davis has lots of garden space. Yesterday we looked at a demonstration garden that is in the middle of campus. It's pretty similar to the one that I work on. 2 of their chickens were the same kind as one of the ones we have! Those poor chick chicks had no shade- they were just baking out there. They had no food and I couldn't figure out where their water would go. They came over to the fence (rather slowly) to greet us and beg for food, but they didn't say anything. Our chickens run over and talk a lot. After hanging out under an overhanging fig tree for a bit (far better "rad chill space" than the one we have and that people are obsessed with working on), we continued to ride around campus.

We got to see the garden by the Domes. This former friend of mine named Tim lived there when he was at UC Davis for a few years. I remember that it was represented to me as "2 acres" of garden that was next door, and I thought that was just his space. Now that I have seen it, I think that this was not the case. This garden is huge. It has individual plots as well as common areas, such as the mulberry (?) trees that we snacked on. Some of the weeds there were 2-3 times the height and width of the same kind of weed that I saw in other areas (we're talking like 8 feet tall). There is lots of space available. And there will be TONS of blackberries soon. How do those students have time to study with such a rad garden to work on?

One of the things that was so sick there was that there are SO many different kinds of plants, and the way that not all of the plots are occupied/active means that it seems really, really chaotic there. The other thing was the amount of space, and how far the campus watering system appeared to go.

Apparently the first garden gets mulch delivered from the school. We thought this was funny, considering that they have approximately 5 different demonstration compost bins. It is not unlikely that they put a lot of garden waste out on the curb for the campus folks to pick up and compost for them. Also, they don't grow compost crops like grains that could be fed to the chickens/used in the compost. How's that for sustainability? They do have rad solar panels that create shade and almost could have gone in the chickens' area.

The apartment that H, S, and C currently live in is near a seemingly far better apartment complex coop thingie- this place has about 2 acres of garden ALONG THE BIKE PATH! Oh my god. There are chickens, artichokes that aren't doing so well, a sunchoke thicket (maybe people don't know how good they are to eat, and they have been left there for a few years, cuz it is a big circle of sunchokes), and of course the usual tomatosquashbeangreenswhatever kind of gardeny plants. There are also private fruit and nut trees there along the path. Word has it that to buy a place there you get to shell out $750k. I mean, IT'S JUST NOT FAIR! They are creating rad community there, and probably not a lot of people get to see it, but they are doing it.

I am still not clear what kind of jobs there are around Davis that make it possible for people to 1. bike so much and 2. afford housing that is that expensive. I'd imagine maybe they all drive to Sacramento...?

One more thing- there are a pool and a hottub in the apt. complex where these guys are living. Poor things. Shelley still hasn't gone in! Tried to convince her, but it was to no avail. I went in. Believe me.

Remembering an old house

2005-05-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

The kids who live there now are moving out of my old house on 63rd Street. I went over there today to try to get my stuff back. Pookie went and got some of the old artsy stuff that was in the basement. I lost the number of Ann, who lives in my old room, and Pookie never gave it to me again, so I have been trying to find the right time to go over there and see if anyone's still there.

They have my answering machine, a compost bin, hopefully the fence from my garden, and even more hopefully my $60 that Flo owed me from my deposit (?!). There are also apparently cleaning supplies, but they are Matt's. I'm sure of it, cuz they were there when I moved out.

When I first pulled up, I noticed that the grass in the front yard is very tall- unusually so for a house that belongs to one of those landlords who comes over at least twice a week to fix something on the property or fiddle with her plants. I saw the cat perch outside the front window, the tiny dead cactus pot next to what had been Matt's window. I noticed how dirty the front steps were- I think we swept them regularly when I lived there. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. They have the doorbell taped so it stays off. I think we had put in one of those battery operated remote operated doorbells, and it had had a ghost.

I walked around the house a bit and saw that there is stuff in Ann's window. That was such an awesome room- south facing, huge, lots of closet space, a door to the outside...very bright. Didn't look like she was home, but how can you tell? I just left a note and went home.

What struck me when I was there was the memory of the feelings of hope and excitement that we had when we found that house. I had been wanting to start a little intentional community and had put an ad on craig's list to find people. One person stuck with me the whole way, and even though she was a kook, we got the house together. After interviewing extensively for roommates, I found myself living with 3 people with whom I had next-to-nothing in common. Noone worked on the yard with me, anything I said about activism was strange and exotic (even to me- I put pretty much all of my activist energy into that house and lurked on a bunch of lists that whole winter), and the cat tended to puke and poop around the house.

That house burned me on starting houses with people I didn't know, but did that stop me from moving into the Sprout House with an even larger group of strangers? No. That was a mistake. I still believe in and desire to live in intentional community, but I think I would settle for 5 acres of my own on which to raise kids and food. I think I am probably too complicated a person to just move in with people who don't know me, and all of my friends know better than to try to live with me.

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2005-03-23T21:31:00.000-08:00

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Goodbye, Jenn

2005-03-18T22:01:00.000-08:00

3/21 update:

Jennifer Dieges died on Saturday. I asked Moriah if her mom had been there- she was. People think it's kind of weird when I tell them that she died at home, but really, where else should a person die, but surrounded by the people who love them the most?

I wrote this Friday night:

Jenn Dieges is about 35 years old. She was diagnosed as having metastasized(sp?) breast cancer about 5 years ago or so. I forget. We used to kind of share a lover. He would tell me about her progress. She moved into the CatHaus 2 or 3 years ago, and I remember how her housemate Jesse would tell me how she was doing, and even shared a bit about their house talks about her death. Hm, their website is a bit out of date. Their cat Foggy died, and Jenn's cat Tez isn't even on there. He's awful cute. (at least, I thought he was a boy)

I remember when he said they had found spots on her liver. And that she would be on chemo the rest of her life. She was on chemo when a bunch of us formed the "Gimp Bloc" for the WTO Agricultural Ministry meeting in Sacramento in 2002. The protests sucked, and she cried, because she missed an event with her cancer support group, but they had told her to go out and fight for them. I think that will stick with me- how important it is to have fun protests. Jesse and other friends and I used to organize fun protests and we haven't done it together in years.

She studied to be a teacher, and taught for a couple of years, after her diagnosis. She did so much. Last fall she travelled to Hawaii. I think earlier in the year she had gone to Europe. I remember parties at the house- she always had this totally different group of friends, lots of people I had never seen before.

I spoke with Jesse tonight and he seemed oddly at peace- Jenn is having trouble breathing, and there is a gurgling sound. She's been on methadone for a couple of days already. Earlier today Moriah told me that they were having trouble donating her body to science because of her jaundice. M. also said she had been having panic attacks. I hope she is able to have a quieter passing.

Bye, Jenn- you were such an inspiration.