Cutting Down on Catalogs

It's been a long time since I've posted--had a wedding to plan and have and recover from, and that loomed large. It's been a time of introspection as well, of looking within, of questioning, and of trying to understand things better. I don't know that I've figured out anything of great significance, but I feel a kind of expectation, that some kind of new awareness may be on the horizon.

That said, I just wanted to post something briefly about a new website I found, courtesy of Sierra Club Magazine. It's called CatalogChoice.org and it allows you to request catalog publishers to take you off their mailing lists through one interface. For some time I've been growing more and more irritated as the catalogs seem to only grow more numerous in my mailbox. I've just signed on for their free service today, and it's a little clunky on my less-than-state-of-the-art computer, but I'm excited about the promise of being able to take myself off the mailing lists of these companies that keep filling up my mailbox with catalogs that I try my best to not even open, lest I succumb to temptation--without having to chase down the contact information of each catalog supplier individually. I think it should be a win-win--less unwanted mail for me, less wasted money for these companies I will not buy from. I think it shows great promise, and encourage anyone with a similar problem to check them out!

Link:

CatalogChoice.org

Bye-Bye Alberto

The first thing I heard upon waking today was the news that Alberto Gonzales had resigned. My inbox this morning was full of emails expressing what a victory this was for the progressive cause.

I don't like the guy--I don't know how anyone who cares about democracy could like the guy--but I have to admit that the first thing I thought was that of course they would time it during a recess of Congress, because then they can make a recess appointment of someone who will not try to uphold the law (necessary to protect Mr. Bush and his cohorts from criminal prosecution for their crimes), and then they will probably just put up impossible nominee after impossible nominee and do their best to run out the clock. I hope I'm wrong. But it seems like that is the standard operating procedure for Bush & Co. So while I'm happy to see Alberto go, I'm not yet ready to celebrate it as a real victory. And then next will it be Mr. Cheney hanging up his hat, in time to replace him with someone more likeable, who can then become the nominee (brother Jeb perhaps?) who might have a snowball's chance of at least giving the appearance of being electable? So that the stealing of this next election, when it happens, is at least plausible. I hope I'm wrong about that too. But I wouldn't put it past them.

OK, this is definitely the pessimist in me talking. I hope I'm wrong. I guess we will just have to wait and see how this plays out.

A Taste of Perspective

Something happened a few weeks ago. I had been struggling, really struggling at work--feeling like my co-workers didn't like me, like people weren't giving me any credit for having any skills, knowledge, or insights at all. It had gone on for months. I was pretty unhappy, and I wondered if it was the Universe trying to let me know that taking that job had been a mistake. So many things had gone wrong in my transition to full-time employee that my boss even said to me one day that she had never seen anything like it in her many years of work and wondered if it wasn't some kind of bad karma.

So this one day, a Monday to my recollection, I had had some feedback from my site manager that had me feeling cranky and misunderstood. I was walking down the hallway and I suddenly saw everything, all of this stuff, as just a threat to my ego. I saw my ego there, as this little creature of small substance, with its fists up and ready to fight. And for a moment I saw that this was all it was, this small insubstantial part of me feeling threatened, and then I felt the knot of tension I'd been carrying around in my belly for as long as I could remember just...dissipate. It was like something in the core of me expanded, and I felt an odd sense of joy.

I have to say that I haven't spent a lot of time pondering my ego. As a person who has been pretty insecure most of my life, I had never thought of myself as particularly egotistical, or egocentric. I thought that ego was mostly about some kind of overly inflated sense of self. But I'd been reading this book, the When Fear Falls Away book, and it had made me think about ego in a different way--not so much as self-obsession, but merely as that thing we grow with labels that say "I am this, I am that." I had started to wonder about these things.

The knot in my stomach? It came back. But the experience, while it was fleeting, left its mark. I don't see things in quite the way I did before. Something shifted in me. When I read the end of When Fear Falls Away, I felt I understood what she was talking about, a little. The facade was still there, but it had cracked a bit, and some light had come in, and made a difference.

DiCaprio's The 11th Hour

I just learned about this movie today (not sure how it escaped me), but it looks like it will be one of the must-see movies of the summer.



Link:

11th Hour Website

Firefighters Union releases anti-Giuliani video

I have never found much to like about Rudy Giuliani. I heard soon after 9/11 about how the firefighters and police didn't have the radio systems they needed to be able to talk to one another, and more recently kept hearing about how Giuliani had located his terrorism response center in the twin towers, a known terrorist target.

I recently have been reading a piece in the American Prospect about Giuliani and have found that there is much else to not like, but that the Republicans might be desperate enough to settle on him, even though many of his views don't fit neatly in a cultural conservative box.

At any rate, this video is affecting and worth passing along.



Link:

"If you knew Rudy like I know Rudy..." by Michael Tomasky, from the American Prospect

Michael Moore defending "Sicko" on CNN

This video has been out and about, but in case you haven't seen it it's well worth watching. CNN does a little smear piece on Sicko, with Michael Moore there in the studio. Michael gets pretty pissed off, and does some ranting about CNN's failure to tell the American people the truth about so many things, including, and predominantly, the war in Iraq.



The follow up video (broadcast the day after the first but filmed together with it) courtesy of Crooks and Liars:



This is Michael Moore's "Truth Squad" response to the CNN allegations:

'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight

When Fear Falls Away

A book came home the other day. My Significant Other ran across it in the library and brought it home. We've both been reading it. It's a fascinating tale of metamorphosis, of the disappearing of an old way of life and the welcoming of a mysterious new one, a new life without fear and suffering.

The author is a writer named Jan Frazier, who was facing an annual mammogram after a couple of breast cancer scares. She was terrified--and then she asked for the fear to be taken away. Mysteriously, miraculously, she not only awoke with no fear but found that a profound change had come over her life, something that changed everything.

Now, this transformation didn't exactly come out of nowhere--she had been studying with some adherents of Siddha yoga, under the tutelage of an Indian mystic named Gurumayi. Still, her transformation was sudden, and unexpected in its completeness.

I haven't spent a lot of time contemplating enlightenment as a goal. It has always seemed like the kind of thing that is so unlikely, it's not really worth all the painful years spent meditating and eating tofu in some temple, hoping to get there. Either that, or something like what happened to Byron Katie or Eckhart Tolle after seeing their lives fall completely apart. Not something you exactly strive for, because you have to go through all that mess first.

Yet, you hear all this stuff about an evolution in consciousness. And it makes me wonder if this might be paving the way for this kind of stuff to become more--mainstream, more commonplace. I don't know. I don't know if I want to be some enlightened being, because that sounds kind of freaky and way out there. But the idea of not worrying about death, and illness, and having some amazing reserve of love and compassion, that doesn't worry about whether your coworkers like you, for example--that doesn't have any worries, but only the desire to help relieve suffering in others--well, that might be all right.

At any rate, it's a fascinating read, I think, for anyone who knows what it is to live with fear, especially those special fears that come about by being a mother, by bringing vulnerable children into this world, and thereby learning what it is to fear loss of all kinds. I remember when my son was just a few days old, and I heard a news report of some children killed in a school bus accident or something, and I thought, What have I done? How could I go and have this baby when it would destroy me to lose him? What was I thinking? There is a part in the book where she is facing a breast cancer scare, and she thinks, I would be OK, if I weren't a mother. And she hears a voice, the voice of Gurumayi, saying "You must be OK, even though you are a mother." Sometimes I think I could face all the fears I have of the future so much easier--if I did not have a son. But I do have a son. And I don't regret that decision. But it makes how I face the future that much more critical, and makes this book all that more meaningful, and reading this book has made me think about enlightenment, and what it might mean, in a whole new way.

Link:
When Fear Falls Away website

Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Spiritual Emergencies

We had our first circle group meeting the other night, and in introducing myself I talked a bit about how my understanding of peak oil opened up my eyes to the fact that the future won't simply be a continuation of the past. This led to a opening of my eyes to other realities that will change our future, namely the indebtedness of our country and our families, and in the longer term climate change -- the greatest risk to the generations that will follow mine.

All of this created something of a spiritual emergency within me, leading me to question what's the point of it all, what does it all mean. In the end, I'm not sure that all of these current and future problems matter a great deal. I will always have the moment, I believe the birds will always be singing in the forest, and the optimist in me believes that when we really need to, we can adapt and come together more as a country and as communities as we face challenges in the future. (This is one of the problems I have with diehard peak oil gloom and doomers, they will accept no alternative other than complete societal breakdown, chaos, civil war, etc. etc.) I believe these people are largely ignoring the influence of women in this scenario they are painting...

I read an interview of Peter Russell which really spoke to me. He discusses the nature of consciousness, especially in light of our challenges--how we still need to act, and how we also need to have fun along the way. I also feel intrigued by the idea of preparing our local communities for the energy descent, which seems inevitable.

The Limitations of Nonviolence

I've always thought that nonviolence as a tactic was absolutely brilliant--force the opponent to show their brutality, and it will be clear to all who is in the right and who is in the wrong. The church I was part of for some time got very interested in Non-Violent Communication, the Marshall Rosenberg program that says that what is important is owning one's needs and communicating them in a way that is gentle and non-threatening enough to allow one to be heard. The method is useful, I think--it's good to be able to own your reactions, so for example, instead of saying "You make me so crazy when you refuse to listen to me," you say, "When you left the room without saying anything, I felt scared and sad." It can be a useful tool, but some of the proponents of NVC want to use it as a way to solve big world problems, and my Significant Other, being from a state which was formerly a colony and having seen first hand the results of empire, has influenced me to be suspicious of the method for such a use. He's been afraid that it would become a tool of power--that those in power would use listening as a way to mollify and preserve the status quo.

I bought the June edition of Utne Reader some time back--they had a cover story called "The Future of Protest: Why Your Voice Still Matters" that was of interest to me. I picked up the magazine last night while I was waiting for some water to boil, and flipped open to an article entitled "Arms and the Movement: Pacifism equals pacified to this activist," by a guy named Peter Gelderloos. The article was excerpted from his new book, How Nonviolence Protects the State. I've read a few things about Rachel Corrie recently--the young woman who was mowed down by an Israeli bulldozer, trying to block the destruction of a Palestinian home. So I was interested, and read the article. It was disturbing to read--and at the end, I felt like my understanding of non-violence was probably too simplistic.

This article made me think about several things--Gandhi in India, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam war--in a new light. His stance is that although nonviolence had its part to play, that first that what happened in these cases was less clearly a victory for those who resisted nonviolently than the coming together of a multitude of factors, some of which were in fact violent. Second, that the outcome wasn't as rosy as we've been accustomed to think--in India, colonialism gave way to neocolonialism, and he says that the British had a heavy part to play in fomenting violence between different religious sects as a way of neutralizing the perceived threat that a united, independent India might pose. That yes, the civil rights movement won some important victories for blacks in this country, but it certainly didn't result in real equality:

In short, the largest victory of the civil rights movement came when black people demonstrated that they would not remain peaceful forever. Faced with the two alternatives, the white power structure chose to negotiate with the pacifists, and we have seen the results: The movement was successful in ending de jure segregation and expanding the minuscule black petty bourgeoisie, but fell far short of full political and economic equality, to say nothing of black liberation from white imperialism.

And then he talks about Iraq, and how hopeless it was to think that the peace movement could have stopped that war. He sums up:

From India to Birmingham, nonviolence has failed to sufficiently empower its practitioners, whereas the use of a diversity of tactics got results. Put simply, if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system that is based on centralized coercion and violence.

I am still not sure what to think about all this. I have walked; I have protested war. I have walked for action against global warming. I walked on Inauguration Day in January 2001, when I was full of despair about the selection of George W. Bush. I didn't know if it was doing any good. It felt better to do something than nothing. But then, I didn't walk during the Battle of Seattle. I thought about it, but I had a baby at home. I watched the news and I was scared. I think what Rachel Corrie did was heroic--and yet, they are still bulldozing settlements.

At any rate, the article was thought-provoking. It made me question things that I thought that I knew. That process is always uncomfortable. The more you understand, the less you are sure of. But maybe that is a good thing. If you're sure you know the truth, you stop trying to find it.

Link:
"Arms and the Movement" by Peter Gelderloos

Sicko a must-see for Americans

We went to see the sneak peek of Sicko last night in Seattle. The theater was packed, and it was one of the bigger screens in the multiplex. Now, as I said before, I've been anxious to see this movie since the day Michael Moore announced he was going to make it, years ago, after Fahrenheit 9/11. I went in to the movie with high expectations, and when it was over I fully felt that Michael Moore had delivered, above and beyond.

The movie is not an easy movie to watch. Many of the stories were heartwrenching, like that told by the mother of the 18-month-old girl who'd spiked a fever and was denied care at the closest hospital by Kaiser Permanente--by the time she got to the Kaiser hospital, which was much farther away, the little girl had gone into cardiac arrest, and she died. Or the story of the woman in her early twenties who had cervical cancer and was denied coverage by her insurance company because she was "too young" to have it. The cancer has now metastasized.

Moore did something masterful, I think. You know we always hear about these millions of people who have no health insurance, and he does touch on that in the film. But he explicitly aims the film at the 250 million Americans who think they have insurance--and shows us that having insurance is no guarantee that we will receive the care we need if we actually get sick.

He also goes to Canada, the UK, and France, to talk to people on the ground about what it is like to have universal healthcare. Now, we know there is only so much you can show in two hours. And sure, he probably could have dug up some people to complain about those systems. But I think that we've seen enough rationing of care by now in this country to know that you don't need a government-run system for healthcare rationing to happen. Watching this movie made me embarrassed for what we've become as a country--the heartlessness and cruelty that comes out of the greed behind for-profit healthcare.

Michael Moore has caught some flak for his trip to Cuba, and I'd heard some things about his trip with the 9/11 rescue workers, but I was unprepared for how moved I was by this part of the film. It's clear from his portrayal that Cuba is not paradise--it is a poor country. Yet the generosity that is shown for these people, because they are human beings in need of care...Yes! Magazine's Summer 2007 edition has an article on healthcare in Cuba and how Cuba is training doctors for free, in exchange for a commitment to serve the poor. They have decided that it is a way that they can invest in their own security--not by building up their military, but by building a reputation of generosity to those in need. They sent thousands of doctors and medical staff to help in Pakistan after the earthquake there, and were able to transform a shaky relationship into a relationship of trust. They even tried to send medical help to New Orleans--but were denied the right of entry. I think that freedom of expression is worth a lot. For how much we do have of that, in this country, I am grateful. But if you are sick and in need of care and are not wealthy, America is not a good place to be. And that is a shameful thing.

It doesn't have to stay that way. Universal single-payer health insurance wouldn't be that hard to implement. We already spend more than anybody else per capita on healthcare. Yet it would virtually destroy a very powerful industry, one with four lobbyists per member of Congress. They will not go without a fight. No parasite wants to die; the will to live is strong. The question is, how long can we, the hosts, tolerate the parasites that will only keep us alive as long as it is useful and profitable to them?

Healthcare has many nuances. I long for a healthcare system which is about creating and maintaining health, not just about fighting illness once it happens. I have great respect for naturopathic care. I think our system could benefit from being more holistic. Universal single-payer health insurance would not solve the problem of how to create wellness, in and of itself. But I think it would be a great place to start. We at least need to amp up this conversation, and I think that what Michael Moore has done will do a lot to help that happen. Kudos to you, Michael. You are one of my great America heroes.

Please see the movie. And let's start that conversation.

Links:
Dennis Kucinich's plan for universal, single-payer, not for profit healthcare
The People's Email Action Network action page for HR 676, Healthcare for All
Yes! Magazine article about Cuba exporting health care

The official Sicko trailer:

The Blue Butterfly

Last night we watched The Blue Butterfly, a sweet movie based on the true story of a boy named David Marenger who was born in 1981 in Quebec and at 6 was diagnosed with brain cancer. The cancer spread, and he was not expected to live. The boy's dream was to catch a Blue Morpho, a beautiful and rare butterfly. He traveled to the jungles of Central America, in the company of a Canadian entomologist, to try to fulfill his dream. After he returned, his cancer had gone into remission. The movie, as movies are wont to do, plays a little loose with the particulars, but in its essence it's a true story--a story of hope, a story of the wisdom of Nature that we have in large part forgotten in this modern world of ours, a story of redemption. The movie is beautifully done, and it kept the attention of my son the Nintendo addict, which is something. The DVD adds behind-the-scenes extras, like interviews with David and the movie makers, which are worth seeing as well.

Link:
The Blue Butterfly

Thinking and talking about our future

It seems like we have a real issue here in America, which has something to do with not being able to think in the long term--or at least to be able to talk about it. We judge our economy by what the unemployment statistics are in this snapshot in time; we use "consumer confidence" blips as tools of prognostication. Sales are down 1.3%, and it is a warning shot across the bow. Yet at the same time you get the feeling that no one wants to say anything too gloomy for fears that it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy, like the 2001 This Modern World cartoon about the perceived need to "talk up" George W. Bush, like the news must talk up the market: "If we all agree to believe that our investments are worth lots and lots of money--then they will be! But if anyone has any doubts--then the magic spell will be broken and all will be lost!"

I remember reading something long ago--in the early 90's--about Japan, where they were saying that one of the major differences between Japan and the U.S. was that in Japan they thought strategically and long-term, and cared more about gaining market share than about what this quarter's profits were doing, whereas in America you had people clambering over each other to "liquidate" assets--selling off productive capacity for a quick profit, not caring for what the loss of that productive capacity might mean in the long term to the economy.

And of course there is the issue of the extractive economy itself--the gaping maw that must be fed, never caring about what kind of destruction it leaves in its wake.

We have a lot of huge issues facing us--the end of cheap oil, the threat of catastrophic climate change--but it seems we can't even deal sanely with the issues that loom right in front of us, like access to health care. Native Americans have said that we should think of how our decisions will impact the next seven generations, but it seems like we can't even talk rationally about the future in any way whatsoever. When they were pushing No Child Left Behind, we were told that it was education that would secure the way for our children. But it didn't seem that there was any discussion about how much higher education goes underutilized, when the infrastructure to support professional jobs keeps getting whittled away, when companies prefer to bring in cheaper foreign labor or to offshore high-paying jobs altogether. Education is good. Education is important. But it is not enough, in and of itself. And what if the jobs are feeding us today, yet leading us on to our destruction?

I remember watching closely during the campaign of 2000 and feeling frustrated because no one would talk about anything of real import. No one would talk about the things that I felt we needed to talk about to make sure there is some sort of future that we would want. I felt like the debates were mostly about fluff, the conversational equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Much of the responsibility lies in the mainstream media, which would rather talk about Brad and Jen and Angelina than about real issues facing real Americans, about real issues facing us as human beings on planet Earth. Perhaps it is more profitable to keep us distracted, fearful, and thinking that if we are just thinner, or if we just have Widget X, things will be better for us. But without the connection from person to person, from generation to generation, what do all these things matter in the end?

I felt like Katrina was a huge object lesson from our government. Just know, it said. Just know, that in disaster, you are wholly on your own. This is where we are now, in 21st century America, hovering on the edge of bankruptcy on every level. It isn't inevitable. But it most likely will become inevitable if we aren't able to change the conversation.

Thom Hartmann says over and over that we cannot wait for a leader. That we must become the parade, and that once the parade is moving, the leaders will then come and jump in front of it. I'm not sure exactly how we do that, but I do believe that there are many many people in this country who are hungry for a different way of being, a way of being that says I will care about my own life, but not only my own life, for I am part of a greater whole.

I think that investing in the time to talk, and to listen, is a good first step.

Links:
This Modern World: Straight Through Nap Time
For the Grandchildren

The Sheep and the Goats

I got to hear about 10 minutes of Thom Hartmann's show this morning in the car, and caught the tail end of an interview with Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy, the president of the Interfaith Alliance. They were discussing the role of religion in government, and Thom said that he thought that so much of what goes on in the name of Christianity is so strange, because in his opinion the Christian religion is really summed up by the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 25, which contains, among other things, the parable of the sheep and the goats--which both basically say that what matters is taking care of other people. Gaddy said that growing up in the Southern Baptist church (he's still a Baptist preacher, though not a Southern Baptist one) he never heard Matthew 25. He said it didn't really fit in with their message of how to be saved. Thom quipped that it was ironic that this passage was ignored, because it was part of the answer the one time that Jesus' disciples came and asked how to get into Heaven. I thought that what Gaddy said was fascinating, if true. It would sure explain a lot about what you see coming out of many churches that profess the name of Christian.

I don't read the Bible much these days. I spent a lot of time reading it in my younger years, though, and the parable of the sheep and the goats, from Matthew 25, is one of those stories that has persisted with me through time. Basically, according to the story, at the end of time all the nations will stand before the Son of Man (presumably Jesus), and he will divide the sheep from the goats. He tells the "sheep" that when he was hungry, they fed him. When he was naked, they clothed him. When he was homeless, they put him up. When he was sick, they cared for him. When he was in prison, they visited him. And the sheep are confused. They are like, when did we do any of these things for you? We never did that for you! And he tells them that whatever they have done for the least of his brethren, they did for him, and that they would get their reward. To the "goats," he goes through the same thing, except saying "You never did anything to help me, so it's the pit of hell for you!" They are also confused, because they are like, hey, we never overlooked you, Jesus! But he says that whatever they failed to do for the least of these, they failed to do for him.

I don't really believe in a literal heaven and hell. I think of them more as descriptive of a state of mind or consciousness than places you go to forever when you die. But in thinking about this passage a little bit today, especially in the light of the Tolle references in the blog (The Teeming Brain) I linked to yesterday, I think that this passage fits in very well with what I believe (at this moment, today, June 21, 2007) about the universe. That we are all part of one big whole. What I do to you, I have done to myself. There is an inescapable reciprocity in what we do because we are all, at some level, small parts of a very big interconnected whole. Which is comforting in some ways, but also scary at some level. How often do I think petty, mean thoughts about other people? How often do I get impatient? How often do I let myself feel alone and separate? How much more could I do to alleviate suffering in this aching, groaning world?

(As an interesting little aside, when I told my Significant Other--not a daily Bible reader, either--about what I'd heard on the radio, he said that he'd just then been reading a version of Matthew 25. When that kind of stuff happens, I know it's time to pay attention!)

Happy Solstice, by the way!

Links:
Matthew 25
The Interfaith Alliance

Michael Moore endorses House bill for universal health coverage

I got this video link courtesy of the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign. Health care is an issue I've been concerned about for a long time, and I've been excited to see Michael Moore's new movie, Sicko, ever since I heard about it several years ago.



The movie opens this weekend with a sneak peek in select cities, with the official opening coming a week later. I have my tickets for the sneak peak, and I'm ready to go.

I know people say lots of terrible things about Michael Moore--I think they have to, because he isn't really that radical. What he says makes a lot of sense. So in order to prevent people from listening, they have to make people think he's some kind of wacko (kind of like what they do to Dennis Kucinich). But he's one of my heroes, and I'm excited to see the movie. I hope we can do something about healthcare in America soon, because people shouldn't have to die because they can't afford a hospital bill. And they shouldn't have to go to Cuba, either!

Links:

Kucinich campaign site
Michael Moore's website

The End of the World as We Know It

I try not to go too far down the path of gloom and doom, although it comes quite naturally to me, being the child of Zero Population Growth, activist parents. I grew up knowing that people were in trouble, that the earth was in trouble. I came of age in the 80's when the cold war was heating up--I remember I shocked some older people once when I was visiting a friend's Thanksgiving get-together (at Denny's, as I recall), by telling them that I hadn't thought that I would grow up. I didn't know if the world could survive so much hatred and fear.

I went through a period a couple of years ago where I got myself really freaked out. A friend lent me Into the Forest (available now on the Amazon marketplace for 89 cents!), a novel about the end of civilization in America. I started reading the From the Wilderness web site and also came to read Thom Hartmann's The Prophet's Way, which is a wonderful book, but also a book that leaves you feeling how close to crisis things are--how very, very close we are to having the whole house of cards just fall right apart.

At some point I had to stop; I had to focus on things that were hopeful. I am a mother, for one. And I knew that things might fall apart but that they might also hold together, and that I was better off spending my time thinking about what I would like the world to be like, rather than what kind of tragic upheavals could happen.

Yet, sometimes I get pulled back into worries about what the end of this world as we know it might be like. We are so vulnerable--vulnerable to economic collapse, vulnerable to climate change. There are so many people in this world who've already seen the collapse of civilization--how much would it take to tip us in the West over the edge? I think about the things I would miss, like food. Showers. And flush toilets.

I read a blog entry yesterday that I think is worth reading, and contemplating. It's about a movie coming out soon called What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire. The blog post is by a guy I've never heard of, Matt Cardin, over at a blog called The Teeming Brain. I'd recommend reading it, though it's long.

I haven't given up hope of a peaceful transition into a new, better, more compassionate age. A Great Turning, as you will. But I think it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of determination, a lot of passion, and a lot of faith for us to get there without a lot of pain and suffering. I just hope that we can pull that off.

Links:
The Teeming Brain: The sadness of America and the need for a new consciousness
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire

In Debt We Trust

Driving to work yesterday I heard Danny Schechter on the Thom Hartmann show, which was broadcasting from the Take Back America conference. He was talking about his new movie, In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts. He was talking about how 2 million households are facing foreclosure, and how worried people are on Wall Street about the housing market in general--with ARMs readjusting to unaffordable rates, and housing prices falling in many parts of the country. It's hard to know how worried about this to be, but I think it is definitely a huge concern as America becomes more and more burdened with debt--both personal debt and a national debt that seems to be rising out of control, as we borrow more and more money to pay for this war we just cannot afford.

Danny Schechter did another movie a few years back, Counting on Democracy, that revealed much of what was behind the election fiasco of 2000 in Florida, pulling heavily from Greg Palast's work--exposing how voter disenfranchisement and other machinations led to the theft of the Presidency. It was very well done, and I'm much looking forward to seeing his new movie.

Links:
In Debt We Trust
Counting on Democracy

James Dobson and the "Liberal Media"

A few weeks ago I was flipping through stations on the AM dial trying to find a traffic report, and I stumbled onto Focus on the Family and decided to hang out and listen for a short time.

When I was a teenager, I read one of Dr. Dobson's books on self-esteem and found it helpful. The evangelical Christian family I lived with for some time in college used to listen to the show regularly and were big fans. At that time (in the 80's), as far as I know, Focus on the Family had yet to become a big player in the political movement known as the Religious Right, but as time has gone on they've become more and more political, and more and more influential.

Now, I have never understood how Christians could support a political party which is firmly on the side of the rich, and which has embraced war as a first resort. It goes so far against what I saw in the person of Jesus that it has always been unfathomable to me. It has seemed obvious to me for some time that the Republican party has used the issues of abortion and homosexuality to motivate people to vote--when it was clear to me that the Republican party is about nothing except greed, and pushing conservative economic policies that hurt almost everyone except the richest of the rich--and that they used these hot-button issues to win elections, not because they care about the issues, but because using them is effective. How else are you going to get people to vote against their best interests? I mean, if you're rich and your daughter gets knocked up, no problemo! Europe is but a plane ride away.

At any rate, on this particular day Dr. Dobson was complaining about how the press had handled a remark he'd made about Fred Thompson. He said that he'd commented that he didn't know anything about Fred Thompson's religious views, but that if he wasn't a Christian it would cost him some votes. Yet he was quoted as saying that he didn't think that Fred Thompson was a Christian. He felt that this was a total misrepresentation of what he'd said.

Now, in this country, it is clear that people are more comfortable voting for a person of the Christian faith. Whether you want that to be true or not, it is clearly true. The Christian religion is the dominant religion, and most Americans believe in some sort of God. It seems pretty clear that Americans want to know that their leaders have some sort of a moral compass. So I don't think it was crazy for him to say what he said that he said. I could have said the same thing--not with the same kind of agenda behind it, granted--but I think that on the surface it's true. If you don't profess the Christian faith, the fact is that it will cost you at the ballot box.

What Dobson said about this incident seemed totally reasonable at first. He felt like you couldn't trust the media to tell the truth. That he'd seen it time and time again. Now, I have similar feelings about the mainstream media. I do not feel like we can trust the media to tell us the truth about almost any issue of real importance. The news is more about grabbing ratings and making money than it is about educating the public about the issues of our day. But then he starting ranting about the "Liberal Media." Jim, Jim, Jim. I could only shake my head.

I think that most of us on the left already understand how biased the media is--and certainly not in a left-liberal-leaning way. But wouldn't it be great if those on the right could understand too that one of the problems we both have is the corporate media--a media that has no dedication to truth in any form. Perhaps if we had a media that at least aimed for objectivity we could start to feel like we could talk to each other again. Maybe not. But maybe. I sure wish we could try it out and see.

According to the Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index, in 2006 the U.S. tied for 53rd in the world with Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga. The founders of our country knew that a free press was critical to having a functioning democracy, which is why the press is the only industry expressly protected in the Bill of Rights. It's nothing short of tragic that things are where they are today. But listening to Dr. Dobson--for a moment at least--gave me hope (maybe a false one, but a strange kind of wild hope nonetheless) that perhaps somehow we could find common cause even with those who don't agree with us on all the issues.

Links:
Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006
Dobson: I didn't disparage Fred Thompson's faith

Wage slavery

The other day I was listening to Air America Radio and a caller was talking about how the increase in housing prices had meant that more people were more and more enslaved by their jobs. It brings to mind a book that I started reading a couple of times--The Soul of Capitalism, by William Greider. He starts off by talking about his grandparents, who had their own farm and were mostly self-sufficient. They grew their food, did what needed doing. His grandfather's failed attempt at indoor plumbing meant that they were still using an outhouse. Now, William Greider has been around for a while, but even for him, growing up in simpler times, visiting his grandparents, he said, felt full of privation. Yet his grandfather so greatly valued his independence, he spoke with great scorn of those who would sign themselves up for "wage slavery." Yet here in 21st century America, there are few of us who are not wage slaves. We don't work for the joy of it--we feel lucky if we like our jobs, and if we can keep the jobs that we like. We work because how else will we live? How could we avoid homelessness and hunger? How could we keep our families together?

I work in a high-tech industry. I work with people who are, for the most part, managing to "make it" in America. They have cars and homes and decent salaries. Of course, they know the wolf is always at the door. You know it by the gallows humor you hear in hallways and staircases. The threat of losing your job to outsourcing or offshoring is real. We know it because most of us have seen it up close and personal.

It's interesting to me how people sometimes reveal their fanatasies of being able to live another life. The program manager at that Large Software Company who wants to open up a bar in the Carribbean. The high-powered manager and the technical writer who both harbor dreams of running a bakery. We spend our time in these jobs which pay the bills, but do not fulfill our deep longing to do what we love. We hope that if we do it long enough, we can figure out a way out. But all around us, life becomes more and more expensive. For many of us, just to try to hold on to something that resembles the standard of living we had growing up costs us most of our time, energy, and imagination.

I went to a church service this weekend and a folk singer sang "9 to 5," the song from the old Dolly Parton/Lily Tomlin movie. (I wondered how that would work out--it's not really a folk song. But it came out pretty well, actually.) At any rate, I couldn't help but think about the people I know who work 10-12 hour days regularly. I don't do that, but I see it. It's not pretty. At any rate, the song of course is about working for someone who uses you as a tool for their own enrichment and advancement. Wage slavery.

Now there are plenty of people in this world who are worse off, of course. I think about workers in Chinese factories who are instructed to lie to inspectors, telling them they get to take one day off a week. Where if you get sick, you lose your job. Workers in Saipan who are forced to take pregnancy tests and get abortions in order to stay employed. People who are trafficked across borders to work as sex workers or to be used as sweatshop labor. In lots of ways, the people I work with and most people I know, in comparison to that, live lives of ease and freedom.

But yet. I can't help but think there must be another, better way to be. For me, for them, for us. As for me, I'm still looking.

On good news

I am a sucker for good news. I admit that I go through times when I immerse myself in what I can only think of as bad, bad news. How the environment is being destroyed. The dangers of climate change. The conundrum of how we will feed an ever-increasing human population when fishing stocks are dangerously declining, topsoil is flying off or floating away in staggering quantities, and water resources are becoming more and more strained. Or in the news, how the Republicans are stealing elections, not just with flawed voting equipment and redistricting, but also with caging schemes to peel off just enough voters so that they can continue to win, even though they are more and more being exposed for what they are--greedy bastards. See? I can go down that road. Sometimes I do.

But I'm thankful that there is a counterbalance to all that. People are doing amazing stuff in this world. I read a book last year that was so wonderful, it brought me to tears over and over again. The book was called Hope's Edge, by Francis Moore Lappe and her daughter Anna Lappe. In the book they travel around the world to look at what kinds of things people are doing--from organizations teaching schoolchildren and prisoners to garden, to the story behind Organic Valley (a very, very cool story), to a city in Brazil where they have declared access to food a human right and have found that it was really quite easy and cheap to eliminate hunger in their city.

I also love Yes!, a magazine I'm proud to know is produced here in the wonderful Puget Sound area, just a ferry ride away from me. The most recent edition of Yes! talks about the changes going on in South America, and had some amazing articles--like about how the IMF (the International Monetary Fund--an organization little known or understood by Americans but one that has wreaked more than its fair share of havoc in the world by demanding that debtor countries sell off their infrastructure and resources, lay off civil servants, and cut back on domestic spending, among other types of "structural adjustments") is on the verge of bankruptcy because countries are finding ways to pay off their IMF loans--and saying that they don't want to be party to destructive trade agreements.

Another newer favorite of mine is Ode, a magazine that started in the Netherlands, but now has an international edition which is published in English. I love Ode--it has a wonderful mixture of stories of activism, of sustainable business, of spirituality...

There are a lot of things wrong with this world, and I get scared sometimes thinking about the future. But I know that part of getting a future that we want is being able to imagine what a better world would look like, and so I think that anything that helps us to do that, and to recognize those among us who are contributing to this cause, is a precious, precious thing.

Links:
Hope's Edge (and other resources)
Yes! Magazine
Ode Magazine

Women Tend and Befriend

My mom sent me an article a few months ago that helped re-inspire me about being purposeful about gathering women together. It talked about a study which had been done by some women who were scientists who noted that when they were under stress in the lab that the women would gather together to talk, whereas the men would hide away by themselves. They decided to look into this phenomenon further, and found that research showing that the "normal" response to stress was fight or flight was overwhelmingly done with men as the subjects--and when they looked at how women deal with stress, it seems that by nature, we are driven to gather together, and protect the children. I certainly know this to be true about myself, that when I am feeling stressed out the best antidote is to talk with someone about what's going on--and also that feeling alienated and left out is one of the most stressful things I can experience.

The article went on to say that for women it is especially vital that we cultivate relationships, because not having strong relationships may cost us our health and curtail our lives by decades. Yet many of us with jobs and families are so busy that we don't take that time to reach out to one another.

I went out looking for this article online, and I found many references to it, but in my search, I also stumbled on an article that was even more interesting to me. It's on the Women in Higher Education website, and it's entitled "Meg Wheatley Preaches a Revolution Led by Women. " I won't say too much about it--I'd just recommend that you read it! Basically she's saying that it's time to change the way we do things on earth--that the balance has shifted too far in the direction of "command and control"--of dominance, oppression, and exclusion. And that the female energies-- of community, inclusion, and care--will be the ones we will need to save ourselves on this fragile planet Earth.

Grace, and Calling the Circle

Yesterday I received something precious, and I will call it grace.

I had been struggling at work, feeling like I was not fitting in, feeling like I did not know my place, feeling like I didn't understand expectations, feeling like I was failing. Most of these things I had tried to cope with on my own, trying to work out a way to work, but it was not going well. I had a meeting with the manager of our group (who is based in another state), and my de-facto manager on the ground, and they listened to me, and I felt heard and seen in a way I haven't for some time. I had reached a point where I didn't even care what the outcome would be, I just wanted to say my truth. And in the end I felt more hope than I have for some time, and that felt like a kind of unexpected grace.

This morning I picked up a book that I've had hanging around for a while--Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture. A few months ago I was contemplating this circle idea and decided to order the book, but didn't read it--ended up loaning it to the friend who's working with me to start the circle. She bought her own copy, and it came back to me last weekend. And I picked it up today. I was thinking it would just be about starting women's circles, or something like that. But it turns out that it is about creating circle as a way of life, and it's given me some ideas about how we might make this work thing work better. So that was a surprise.

I think it will take some work, but I feel hopeful about my work situation again. And that feels like an unexpected gift.

Practicing Resurrection

Today I took a peek at This Modern World, the first time in a little while, and came across an excerpt of this 1995 Jon Carroll column from the San Francisco Chronicle. It's the story of how he was inspired to take a leap of faith out of a job that he hated, into the unknown, because of the death of a young woman who was an acquaintance of his. A doctoral student, she had all sorts of plans and dreams for what she might do when she finished her degree. One day a truck crossed the center line and and her life was over at the age of 25.

I've put off a lot of things this year. I was busy, taking my classes. Trying to keep the house from becoming a disaster area. Trying to take care of my kid with school and daycare and the job that isn't really what I want, but pays the bills.

I've had some ideas about things I'd like to try. Things I'd like to do. Not so much travel--I've done enough of that to know that people are people wherever you go, though they may act a little different, and that although it's cooler to see beautiful things in person, most of the time it's enough to just be where you are, as long as you are present enough to appreciate what you have.

No, my ideas are more about what I'd like to accomplish. I don't need to be famous--I think the lack of privacy would suck, really. But I would like to have a firmer web of connection with people around me. And I'd like to help save the world in the process. Not the whole world all by myself, just my small part, surrounded by people I love. That's the legacy I'd like to leave. And yet...how purposeful am I about that? How much do I just hope it will happen, once I find the better, more meaningful, closer-to-home job? Or once my son is a little older?

This is the closing part of the article. It may be kind of a spoiler, but I hope you'll go read the whole thing, and think about it. Just in case there is no time to lose.

When you're young you think that life stretches out indefinitely and you can take this crap for another decade. And the lesson of Jeanne Steager is, No, you bloody well can't. Life is of varying lengths, and actuarial tables are only averages, and sometimes you gotta close your eyes and jump. Even if it's scary; especially if it's scary.

Easy for me to say now; I have my dream job. I have my dream job because I quit that other job; that's a fact. Transcendence happens at precisely the same rate as that other stuff. As Wendell Berry says: Practice resurrection.

Pondering the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

I just finished reading the third book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares. I read the first book over a year ago for a short-lived book club I was in with some women from work, and I liked it. Saw the movie. But then kind of forgot about it for a while, until something sparked the memory and I was inspired to order the next books from the library. I read Book Two a few weeks ago, and Book Three last weekend. And I had to ask myself, what is it about these really rather silly books that I like so much?

For the uninitiated, the Pants series is about a group of four girls whose mothers met in a prenatal aerobics class in the 80's. They have been inseparable since birth, and at the start of the first book they are about to spend their first summer apart. They find a pair of jeans in a thrift store that miraculously not only fits them all but makes them all look fantastic--truly miracle pants. For the most part, the stories are fluffy, although there are births and deaths and betrayals and family dramas galore. The stories live in a place outside of time, for the most part. There is little or no mention of the world outside of the small universe inhabited by their families and the boys who love them.

I didn't like being a teenager. My teenage years were much more akin to the experience of Anne Lamott as related in Operating Instructions, where she talks about coming close to regretting bringing her son into the world because she realized one day he would have to experience junior high school. These girls are all beautiful in their assorted yet mostly conventional ways and they mostly struggle with loving the guys who love them back. Perhaps it's partially that fantasy element that attracts me and pulls me in and--I admit it--leaves me with tears running down my cheeks.

Although that may be true, I think there is something else as well. Perhaps in this world, where it sometimes seems so hard to connect with people in a genuine way, it is the story of real friendship that is the magnet. Friends who will stick with you through anything life will send you. Friends who are not just friends of the moment, but friends you know will be yours for the rest of your days.

It's too late to go back in time and create a friendship that started at birth, although I do feel grateful to have one friend I've known as long as I can remember. We weren't terribly close in high school as we kind of went off in different directions. But we've ended up more similar to each other than the close friends I had in high school, but although she lives less than 20 miles away I don't see or talk to her often. I saw her on her birthday--just dropped by to drop off a little something to mark her birthday, which was rather a milestone one. And she was telling me that one of her strongest female connections is with her part-time nanny, who will soon be moving on to other things. And even weirder, that she had envied me, for being able to bring together the group of friends I got together to see a movie and have dinner for my birthday last year. It's a strange world.

A friend and I are working on starting a women's circle (OK, it's mostly my friend doing the work, bless her), and I'm hopeful that through that we can experience more vital connections with other women. I think it's important, vitally important, that we make those connections, although it is not easy in the midst of busy lives. But I guess that few things that are truly worthwhile come easily. So onward we press.

War is Over! If you want it...

I was saddened at the beginning of this week--Memorial Day--to learn about Cindy Sheehan and her decision to take a step backward from her anti-war work. I saw Cindy a little over a year ago, at the Sacred Activism conference here in Washington, and I appreciated her passion, her commitment, and how much she wanted to spare other mothers the pain that she has herself experienced.

Just the day before, we watched "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," a documentary about how the U.S. government tried to disrupt the anti-war work of John Lennon, a man who was killed when I was in junior high school.

One of the things that kept coming back to me over the next days, and something that Cindy Sheehan's parting-for-now words brought to mind, was the ad campaign that John and Yoko had run in cities all over the world. War is over, if you want it.

I knew the war in Iraq was bad news from the start. I saw how they were selling this war, never giving the inspectors the time they needed on the ground to find out if the threat was real. I knew enough to know that although Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, it was not clear that war would bring better days to Iraq. I tried to end this war before it started. I marched, I called, I spoke out where I could. But unlike Cindy, I didn't sacrifice everything to try to end this thing. The last few years have mostly found me watching in sadness, feeling powerless to do anything that would matter.

So I keep thinking about those ads. We could end this war, if we were willing to put everyday life on hold long enough. If enough of us demanded it. If we were willing to pay the price of demanding that it end, instead of waiting and watching, knowing that we will pay eventually. Our children will pay. But not now, not today. Someday later. Of course, our soldiers and their families are already paying. But they have their missions, and most of them will continue to follow through on the oaths that they swore, no matter how pointless it may seem and however horrendous the immediate costs they will pay. It will not be up to them to end this war.

War is over, if you want it. Hmm.

It's been a long, long time...

Looking back, I haven't posted to this blog in close to a year. In the intervening time, I completed a certificate course in editing, and went from being a contractor to a full-time employee, for the first time since I was laid off in September 2003. The course was very helpful, I thought, but took up a lot of my energy and mind-space. I thought about starting a new blog, a different one, but most of the things I was thinking about seemed to fit in here just fine.