flyingears

some people say it's the most important meal of the day

2011-12-14T12:14:00.002-07:00

I sat on the couch this morning and ate a very decent breakfast. It is not too much to ask for a decent breakfast. I wish everyone had a decent breakfast most every day. I mean once in awhile it can be rather adventuresome to not have a decent breakfast. Perhaps you are busy sword-fighting on a Spanish galleon on meditating in the Himalayas. I am confident there are numerous good reasons for not having a decent breakfast. But for all other mornings, I hope everyone has a decent breakfast.

Right back at you...

2011-12-05T09:56:00.004-07:00

Okay. I'm sitting here trying to type with a kitty in my lap. Quite awhile ago I made a hint that I was going to mention on this blog the cat that has entered our lives. She is the sweetest, most wonderful cat and both me and the other one here in this house love her lots! She really likes sitting in your lap and getting petted or just being close. I think she might be trying to type now...or maybe she's just stretching.

Anyway, she just showed up one day last fall at our old place. I saw her in the front yard and then, a bit later in the day, we heard meowing and looked up to see a cat on its hind feet, its front paws on the window sill, peering in through the front porch window. And she kept looking at us and meowing.

Well, it didn't take long and we had picked up some food and put a cardboard box with some rags on the porch. She slept on the porch for a few days, until we started hearing some very vocal foxes in the night right outside our house. They seemed angry that she had moved into their general area, but who knows what they were really saying?

So, then the cat moved into the landlord's garage at night and mostly stayed on the porch during the day. We took her to the vet, decided on a name (Francis--the saint who was a beggar), and just pretty much fell in love.

We left for the holidays and our downstairs neighbor very kindly took her in while we were gone. ***Francis is licking my cereal bowl at the moment.*** We got back and in the summer moved to a new place. She came with and moved into our garage and yard.

Then, while I was away a few months ago, my partner called and asked what I thought about letting her in the house. We both thought "yeah, that sounds like a good idea!" And now she's in the house with us, except for when she wants to get outside for awhile and roll around on her back. So she went from living on the porch and sleeping in a garage to climbing into our bed at night! She's basically the most loving cat and I'm so happy she's here.

I wasn't planning on writing about Francis when I began this post, but sometimes that's the way things go.

seasonal

2011-10-05T19:45:00.003-06:00

It's a Wednesday night. It's also autumn and very beautiful. I pretty much always love this time of year. Memories of childhood and adolescence are intricately wound up in this season for me. The smells, the feel of the air, all the little indications that fall is here and winter is coming connect in my mind to events and emotions of years past.

I came across a little garter snake today. It was really tiny and so cute. When you pick up a garter snake they let off a stinky scent--it must be an escape tool. I remember this from when I was a kid. I can distinctly recall the smell. I caught hundreds of snakes. In the swamp below where I lived, at this lake I used to go to, all over the place. Garter snakes and bullsnakes. Sometimes snakes got loose in our house, and my Mom would find them a few days later, curled up by the fireplace.

Some thing are different now. But fall is still crisp and falling leaves and cottonwoods.

a few words

2011-10-02T22:24:00.001-06:00

"A compact crowd, clamorous but orderly, looked on, standing in rows upon the sidewalks, and held in place by policemen on horseback who passed along, pushing back the curious brutally with their feet, in order that the villains might not mingle with the rich."

de Maupassant

do

2011-08-12T17:05:00.004-06:00

do dah
do dah
the grass is dead
and the night is cold

do dah do dah
ever think
you'd be
where you are?

H.R. Lillentoff

First Poem

2011-07-30T18:07:00.003-06:00

It should be something magnificent,
I know.
It should be something hard and real.
It should be a polished stone,
smooth beneath a cold river.

It is old nails and bits of electrical wire.
It's the chalky residue of drywall dust.
It's a bloody nose in the dry morning.
Noodles in a pot and a ripe plum.

--Roger Huntington

i didn't even drink any labatts

2011-06-29T20:13:00.007-06:00

What's this...a new post? Thought maybe I was lost in the desert, didja? Or at sea? Or, as it turns out, just not blogging...

Anyway, here I am, back in the psuedo-world of gleaming screens and perfect little type-writer letters. Typing away while cars buzz by outside and birds chatter in the elm trees on the boulevard.

So, I went to Canada for a couple of weeks. This was back in May. I got to see an old friend and a newer one, and spend some decent time with them instead of just a conversation during an evening or catch-up over coffee.

I went up there to visit a clinic that specializes in what appears to be wrong with my leg. I found out about the place after doing some research and checking out a book written by a doctor, now retired, associated with the clinic. It went really, really well. For once, I met with doctors who said they understood what was going on and had a pretty straightforward strategy for moving forward. This was refreshing. The therapy I got and the self-help skills I learned have been helping, and I hope I can keep moving towards getting better.

Getting into Canada was a story in itself. Apparently I am some sort of international criminal. Essentially, my name and passport had been flagged and after being stopped from exiting the baggage area and taken into some room at the airport, the immigration authorities said I could not enter Canada--I was criminally inadmissible--and that I'd have to get on a plane and go back home. After about three hours of questioning, searching, arguing, and simply repeating that I was coming for medical help, I was granted (well, for a couple of hundred bucks) a temporary resident permit and allowed to stay for the duration of my medical appointments. The authorities said very clearly that this would not work again and that I would definitely be turned away if I tried coming again, even for medical stuff.

They read my journal, too, which I imagine was remarkably uninteresting.

While in Canada I watched full games of hockey on television for the first time in my life (I used to watch some hockey games in person back in high school when a friend of mine played). It seemed that just about every other person I passed in the streets during the first afternoon and evening I was there was talking about the semi-finals. I was in Vancouver and the Canucks were playing a team from the U.S--the Nashville Predators, I think.

I also learned that there is a television reality show about traffic cops. Seriously.

And I had a lot of fun hanging out with my two friends. And their cats, too. Which brings me to the next topic, which I'll write about sometime in the very near future.

Kitchen Light, Friday Night

2011-03-25T20:07:00.000-06:00

The lights are all turned off
I’m sitting at the table, looking at the facebook photos of
Old classmates, acquaintances, and friends of friends
I still know what my closest friends are doing
I see them very occasionally
So I don’t look at their photos
Instead I see people I don’t think about often
But were part of my reality back then
I suppose they are the same people, biologically speaking
But I can’t even remember myself,
Let alone what they were

--Jim Rasdul

yeah

2011-03-25T19:34:00.002-06:00

I love reality--someone's always got it figured out, while no one else does.

waterpath

2011-02-28T09:20:00.001-07:00

I loved you, so I constructed
a riverbed of stones and broken glass.
I built it so we could walk unhindered among the
reflected sunlight and under waxy cottonwood leaves.
As you see, the limbs tremble in the breeze. The sun
glints from veined leaf, water-worn stone, and fragments of colored bottles.
We walk hand in hand. The air is right, the light is the same. Our hearts breathe
together. All life, all memories, come unbidden and unfold before us. What we were
answers to who we are. These images pass on either side, like a grove of planted trees.
We move through and continue. We reach a spot beyond which the riverbed continues but
its form is foreign to me. I did not build it, and do not know its lay. The stones and the glass
are here. And the leaves, too, in their greenness.

this morning

2011-02-22T07:39:00.003-07:00

The weeks just keep on sailing by. It's like someone turned on a faucet and left it running, not full-blast but just a steady flow.

Maybe I got stuck. Kinda like when a floating leaf or branch gets pulled into an eddy along the shore of a swift stream and either spins endlessly or becomes entangled in some roots from the bank or a fallen limb.

conturbat

2011-02-18T16:42:00.005-07:00

[The scene is a small living-room with the sunlight of late afternoon falling through the paned glass of windows. It is late winter, and the winds of a cold front blow against the house. A figure is seen sitting in an armchair.]

I need another beer if I'm gonna write anything here today.

[The figure rises from the chair, walks to a table and retrieves a beer.]

I'm kinda sad right now. You know, it's that kind of sadness that I think there's some German word for, or something like that. I don't know. Probably not the best time to drink beer. I rarely drink these days, which is good I suppose. For a short while I tried drinking to ease the pain I have in my leg and foot. It mildly helped, but I really, really dislike being hungover. It feels like a waste of existence. And I get semi-hungover very easily these days. So, I don't drink much.

Nice little caveat there. Speaking of Latin, I just recently encountered the Latin phrase that means "I am disturbed by the fear of death." I read a translation and collation of the Epic of Gilgamesh recently. It's really, really good. In the introduction to this particular version, the Latin phrase is mentioned as a sort of theme to the epic. And it is. A theme of the epic, I mean. The fear of death disturbs me. I mentioned that to someone and they asked "whose--their own or someone else's?" I guess that's a pretty good question.

[The sound of vehicles on the street outside can be heard. A light has been switched on inside the house. The sun is not yet down.]

iron and breath

2011-01-12T13:24:00.011-07:00

(poem for Tadeusz)

You said: “we’ll
leave behind
iron scrap.”
I read your story
sitting next to a heater
on a bright winter afternoon
seventy years later.
I will use my teeth and
my fingers like claws.
When you awake wherever you are
look around and breathe deep.
Then examine the sky.
Sit against something solid
and please think of me reading your words.
There is something true among humans.

some ink on paper in december

2010-12-21T16:55:00.002-07:00

drinking horrible coffee
from the gas station that
used to be a 7-11 where I
played pinball and could win
dozens of free games, keep
playing til midnight and
had to go home, leaving
the twenty of thirty games
to whoever wandered in or
maybe the cashier working
graveyard

there is much snow
and many things pull
at my memories, making
me feel a step out of place
as if I moved away from a frame
in a movie gone frozen

I sit upon a chair in a public place
these are the places for me
the rustle of newsprint
humming of ventilation
my thoughts are blackbirds
in a winter sky
we try to catch our breath
as it floats away

at least there is no wind
only streetlights
and crunching snow

Who Decides How the Oppressed Should Fight Oppression?

2010-11-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

Sunday 14 November 2010

by: Ramzy Baroud, t r u t h o u t | Op-ed

An American activist once gave me a book she had written that detailed her experiences in Palestine. The largely visual volume documented her journey in the occupied West Bank, a place rife with barbed wire, checkpoints, soldiers and tanks. It also highlighted how Palestinians resisted the occupation peacefully - in contrast to the prevalent media depictions linking Palestinian resistance to violence.

More recently, I received a book glorifying nonviolent resistance and referring to self-proclaimed Palestinian fighters who renounced violence as "converts." The book elaborated on several wondrous examples of how these "conversions" came about. Apparently a key factor was the discovery that not all Israelis supported the military occupation. The fighters realized that an environment that allowed both Israelis and Palestinians to work together would be best for Palestinians seeking other, more effective means of liberation.

An American priest also explained to me the impressive scale on which nonviolent resistance is happening. He showed me brochures he had obtained during a visit to a Bethlehem organization that teaches youth the perils of violence and the wisdom of nonviolence. The organization and its founders run seminars and workshops and invite speakers from Europe and the United States to share their knowledge on the subject with the (mostly refugee) students.

Every so often, an article, video or book surfaces with a similar message: Palestinians are being taught nonviolence; Palestinians are responding positively to the teachings of nonviolence.

As for progressive and Leftist media and audiences, stories praising nonviolence are electrifying, for they ignite a sense of hope that a less violent way is possible, that the teachings of Gandhi are not only relevant to India, in a specific time and space, but throughout the world, anytime.

These depictions repeatedly invite the question: where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Next they invite the answer: a Palestinian Gandhi already exists, in numerous West Bank villages bordering the Israeli Apartheid Wall, where they peacefully confront the carnivorous Israeli bulldozers eating up Palestinian land.

In a statement marking a recent visit by the group Elders to the Middle East, India's Ela Bhatt, a "Gandhian advocate of non-violence," explained her role in The Elders' latest mission: "I will be pleased to return to the Middle East to show the Elders' support for all those engaged in creative, nonviolent resistance to the occupation – both Israelis and Palestinians."

For some, the emphasis on nonviolent resistance is a successful media strategy. You are certainly far more likely to get Charlie Rose's attention by discussing how Palestinians and Israelis organize joint sit-ins than by talking about the armed resistance of militant groups ferociously fighting the Israeli army.

For others, ideological and spiritual convictions are the driving forces behind their involvement in the nonviolence campaign that is reportedly raging in the West Bank. These realizations seem to be largely led by Western advocates.

On the Palestinian side, the nonviolent "brand" is also useful. It has provided an outlet for many who were engaged in armed resistance, especially during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Some fighters, such as those affiliated with the Fatah movement, have become involved in art and theater after hauling automatic rifles and topping Israel's most-wanted list for years.

Politically, the term is used by the West Bank government as a platform that would allow for the continued use of the word moqawama - Arabic for "resistance" - but without committing to a costly armed struggle, which would certainly not go down well if adopted by the non-elected government deemed "moderate" by both Israel and the United States.

Whether in subtle or overt ways, armed resistance in Palestine is always condemned. Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah government repeatedly referred to it as "futile." Some insist it is a counterproductive strategy. Others find it morally indefensible.

The problem with the nonviolence bandwagon is that it is grossly misrepresentative of the reality on the ground. It also takes the focus away from the violence imparted by the Israeli occupation – in its routine and lethal use in the West Bank, and the untold savagery in Gaza - and places it solely on the shoulders of the Palestinians.

As for the gross misrepresentation of reality, Palestinians have used mass nonviolent resistance for generations - as early as the long strike of 1936. Nonviolent resistance has been and continues to be the bread and butter of Palestinian moqawama, from the time of British colonialism to the Israeli occupation. At the same time, some Palestinians fought violently as well, compelled by a great sense of urgency and the extreme violence applied against them by their oppressors. It is similar to the way many Indians fought violently, even during the time that Mahatma Gandhi's ideas were in full bloom.

Those who reduce and simplify India's history of anti-colonial struggle are doing the same to Palestinians.

Misreading history often leads to an erroneous assessment of the present, and, thus, a flawed prescription for the future. For some, Palestinians cannot possibly get it right, whether they respond to oppression nonviolently, violently, with political defiance or with utter submissiveness. The onus will always be on them to come up with solution, and to do so creatively and in ways that suit our Western sensibilities and our often selective interpretations of Gandhi's teachings.

Violence and nonviolence are mostly collective decisions that are shaped and driven by specific political and socioeconomic conditions and contexts. Unfortunately, the violence of the occupier has a tremendous role in creating and manipulating these conditions. It is unsurprising that the Second Palestinian Uprising was much more violent than the first, and that violent resistance in Palestine gained a huge boost after the victory scored by the Lebanese resistance in 2000, and again in 2006.

These factors must be contemplated seriously and with humility, and their complexity should be taken into account before any judgments are made. No oppressed nation should be faced with the demands that Palestinians constantly face. There may well be a thousand Palestinian Gandhis. There may be none. Frankly, it shouldn't matter. Only the unique experience of the Palestinian people and their genuine struggle for freedom could yield what Palestinians as a collective deem appropriate for their own. This is what happened with the people of India, France, Algeria, South Africa, and many other nations that sought and eventually attained their freedom.

a great war leaves the country with three armies...

2010-10-28T20:12:00.003-06:00

I read a quote somewhere--supposedly a German proverb--and I thought I'd put it here. And then I got to thinking...you know, pretty much everything is fucking bullshit.

morning

2010-10-08T07:23:00.002-06:00

What a beautiful morning! I went outside around seven. It had been raining during the night and an odd lighting illuminated leaves in trees and the sides of buildings. Off to the east, the sky was orange and small clouds were bright with heavy shadows along their edges. There was the smell of rain on sidewalks and enough of an autumn chill to make a hooded sweatshirt just right.

This all made me feel like I had slept through the last couple of years.

photos and life

2010-09-15T07:24:00.005-06:00

Yesterday I looked through old Life magazines from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was at one of those flea markets down south of town. One of those places that have antique furniture mixed with porcelain roosters, mass market paperbacks, cheap plastic crap from ten years ago, and about a million other things.

I was pretty immersed in these over-sized Life magazines, looking at articles and advertisements and sinking into that era, at least as depicted in popular media of the time. There were articles about famous models and actresses, ads for vodka and television sets. And articles about the war in Vietnam.

Do current magazines ever have stories about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? I know television every night has some soldier on some show, talking about how they are a great spouse and a loving parent and then there is an American flag waving in the background. But never anything about the actual wars. Just feel-good propaganda.

One issue I was flipping through had a photo essay of the US war in Vietnam. One photograph stuck out for me. It showed a small area covered with the prone bodies of dead Vietnamese, killed by Americans. Three officers were standing off to one side. One Vietnamese looked like he was 15 and his eyes were open, staring off into the sky that you couldn't see in the picture. Most of the bodies looked like they were just asleep or something--there weren't visible wounds--but one person close to the right-hand bottom corner of the photo had a large portion of his head blown away.

In an advertisement in a different issue, two white men in suits and ties with partners in dresses were floating in space drinking vodka.

excerpt from "The Pure Fury"

2010-08-26T17:23:00.000-06:00

How terrible the need for solitude:
That appetite for life so ravenous
A man’s a beast prowling in his own house,
A beast with fangs, and out for his own blood
Until he finds the thing he almost was
When the pure fury first raged in his head
And trees came closer with a denser shade.

--Theodore Roethke

another morning

2010-08-26T09:43:00.000-06:00

Summer is on it's way out. I had that surgery back in the spring, and thought that by now I'd be running around, feeling good. That's not the way it's turned out so far. I'm trying today to get a better attitude about all this. I think it would probably help in a lot of ways. So, I'm working on that.

My folks were here for a long weekend and we had a lot of fun. Played a lot of cards, too. Does anyone know how to play the game Whist? For some reason I'd like to learn how to play it.

Speaking of learning--I took a hunter's education class over the last couple of weeks. There was a lot of information. And I learned quite a bit. I'd put money on me being the only vegan in the class. Probably ever. I hadn't taken an official test for some time, but there it was--like high school or something--a fifty question test. The class covered a lot more than what was included on the test, and all in all, I'm happy I took the class.

Jen has started teaching another semester. That really makes it feel like summer is soon to be a memory. The mornings have a distinct autumn chill that makes me think of flannels.

How do we get out of here?

2010-07-30T18:57:00.001-06:00

an interview

2010-07-25T21:16:00.003-06:00

interviewer for the microcosm of people who occasionally check-out this rarely updated blog (impwoctrub): Welcome back to this blog.

me: Thanks.

impwoctrub: What have you been doing recently?

me: Not much, I guess. But I did just get back from a trip home to see my family and some friends. I got to see my mom, dad, sister, and brother, my niece and nephew, and my gramma and several cousins, an aunt, and uncles.

We had a family reunion with lots of hanging out, playing games and cards, eating, drinking coffee, and talking. After the extended family left, my immediate family stuck around awhile and we did more of the above. And played with my nephew. That kid is one cute baby. I even changed a couple of diapers.

On my way to Jen's folks' place, I stopped and saw some old friends in Fargo. It was really fun and I'm glad we still see each other, even though it's not nearly often enough. Plus, I got to play some video games with a great 3 1/2 year old and meet his little brother.

After spending some time with Jen and her folks we came back home; we just got in last night. Now I'm trying to readjust to being here. It's always a strange transition coming home from a trip.

impwoctrub: What else?

me: I don't know.

impwoctrub: Excellent. Can't wait for the next interview....Well, thanks. As always, it's been riveting.

rainy

2010-04-22T11:22:00.000-06:00

What an incredibly beautiful morning. The sky is grey and it's been raining and raining. This makes me feel really good.

It's interesting how weather is often so closely involved with emotions and state-of-mind. I guess most physical things are. Sun, rain, snow, clouds are just easy ones to identify.

Now that I'm thinking about it, other examples of physical things--physical realities--influencing mood, thought, and perspective come to mind. Injuries, poverty, music, another person's touch.

I suppose the list is as long as experience.

well

2010-03-30T18:51:00.012-06:00

"Very well, then, let us live while we live, and enjoy to the fullest whatever of adventure or pleasure each new day brings, since any day may be our last, and we shall be dead for a considerable while."

Well, as is usual, it's been sometime. Not only that, it's been a long time for some things...the cold water of the Missouri, a snowy night in a sleeping bag with toes cold and not much sleep, my friend teaching me how to not be scared witless by a horror movie...

Anyway, here I am now--in front a screen (it seems like there's a hell of a lot of screens most everywhere) with a window just above it letting in the lowering light of evening, of a spring evening when the days lengthen as the sun warms.

I had surgery on my leg a few weeks ago. I could say that's one reason why it's been awhile here, and I suppose it's true but maybe I wouldn't have written anything anyway. The surgery went well and now I'm recovering. The first couple of weeks I was pretty much reclined in a chair with my leg elevated. After I was over being nauseated, I read books and old comics and watched a couple of terrible--terrible--movies from some 50-movie-dvd-set that some friends passed off on me.

Speaking of books, I've been on a bit of a pulp sci-fi kick recently. I read some Edgar Rice Burroughs (the first couple of books in his Martian stories--publishing beginning in 1912, and Beyond Thirty, written around 1915)--he seems like a crazy nationalist, but if I get around that (and some of the -isms that bleed from the prose) I enjoy some of his books, or at least parts of them. And I read another old science fiction book--Triplanetary--by E.E. Doc Smith, most of which was first published in 1934. So, yeah--old school science fiction, comics, and other stuff, too.

I started writing here with a bit of an idea about something; then I got a phone call, and now I don't really remember what that less than half-formed thought was.

I've been listening to music the last couple of days. That sounds less than mentionable, I am sure, but it's really kinda different for me, recently. I just haven't listened to much music for some time. But I've really been enjoying doing so lately.

So, now I am quite a bit more mobile than the last couple of weeks. I'm still using crutches, but it's getting better every day. I started going to physical therapy, to help address this nerve thing I've gotten as a reaction to the surgery and to work on basic range of motion stuff. I think it's helping and, like I said, it's getting better and better. So, I'm pretty happy about that.

It was a crazy warm day here--very, very springish, indeed. I guess it's that time and all.

it's longer than one sentence, anyway

2010-02-24T20:57:00.003-07:00

So, I shaved recently. All the way! I kinda look like I'm nineteen or something. I went to a liquor store this evening, brought a six pack of cheap beer up to the counter, and handed the guy behind the counter my driver's license. He looked at it, looked up at me, looked at the ID again, and then back at me. And then he just kept looking at me. So I said, "I shaved. I just shaved, actually." He nodded and looked at the card for awhile again. Then he handed it back to me and I was able to get the six bottles of beer and leave.

I've written a couple of times here recently, but ended up saving the posts as drafts and then not posting them. I don't know. It's kinda weird lately. And now I don't know what I'm even writing about.

Thick soup--that's what I'm eating. It's carrots and apples and really good. And some tough bread. Tough bread can be pretty good stuff.

well

2010-02-24T11:50:00.001-07:00

I am listening to Conan the Barbarian music and frying potatoes. There's not much else to say right now.

kreegah!

2010-02-11T09:27:00.002-07:00

...incredible, isn't it?

a ravine

2010-02-09T12:21:00.001-07:00

It seems all I can do at the moment is listen to Knocking On Heaven's Door and Wandering Star.

I am wanting the sunlight and the rain and the ground under our feet when we'd go to Huff.

Warning!

2010-01-28T08:36:00.001-07:00

Watch out for this character and his devious tricks! He may try to waylay you on your way to school, work, or wherever you might be headed this morning. For all you people up north--snow doesn't bother him in the least; that cape is warmer than it looks!

cross colours and barbarians or 301st post!

2010-01-24T19:41:00.004-07:00

Greetings. What an occasion--the 301st post on this here flyingears blog! I figured I better post something really special to mark this grand happening, and, what do you know, the perfect thing just presented itself as I was rummaging through a box.

Perhaps, if you grew up when I did and were in junior high and high school in the early nineties, you recall Cross Colours clothing. Back then, I knew they were cool--I mean really, really cool--but I only knew of them in a kind of vague, I've-heard-of-them and I've-maybe-seen-one-person-wearing-them sort of way. I definitely had never worn a pair of Cross Colour pants or donned a brightly colored shirt bearing that very hip logo.

But all of that was about to change, maybe, if I could just save enough money and get to some amazing place that sold the elusive Cross Colours garments.

One day in some winter when I must have been in junior high, I took a trip with my friend and his family in their big van (complete with tv and vcr--we watched Young Guns II enroute!) to Minneapolis. It was quite a trip. The van was broken into in the hotel parking lot, the tv and vcr were stolen, and, worst of all, my copy of Young Guns II--still in the vcr--was stolen (unknowingly, I'm sure). The blow of the theft was somewhat lessened, though, when my friend and I pulled on the handle of a newspaper machine in the hotel lobby and the spring-action door opened right up, revealing not only free newspapers (big deal) but the whole money box of quarters and other shiny coins!

Anyway, the real point of bringing this up is that I had saved up money for this big trip because we were going to go to...the Mall of America! Yes, I remember it so well. I distinctly remember being in the bathroom of the Mall of America. In fact, that's probably my most vivid memory of the whole malling experience. But also memorable, and the reason I'm even writing about that trip, was the incredible piece of clothing that I bought with the money I had saved.

My folks wouldn't buy expensive, trendy shit for us kids. Although I thank them now for it, back then I decided to save what money I could get and purchase something truly cool--a bright yellow, zippered Cross Colours flannel. I remember it so well. It didn't really fit worth a shit, but it was so, so cool. And it had a zipper.

I don't know what ever happened to that flannel, but I hope that somewhere someone is still wearing it.

It came with a Cross Colours sticker, because all smart companies know that stickers are a good advertising scheme.

Today, I was going through some stuff that my parents dropped off awhile ago--a few boxes of old stuff from childhood all the way through high school. In one of those boxes I found an old catalog I used to get that sold swords and all kinds of medieval weapons and clothes and armor. I used to flip through those catalogs and look at the longswords and think how cool it would be to have a real sword. I'm not sure what I would have done with one had I ever gotten one (maybe it would have been the Norman Sword or the Irish Sword, both simple, practical swords, you know), but I suppose some sort of adventure would have ensued.

Well, I found stuck on one of these catalogs of swords the old Cross Colours sticker. I just couldn't imagine a better combination and I really want to share it with you. So, here it is. Beautiful, isn't it?

light from a screen

2010-01-21T15:43:00.002-07:00

It's kinda fucking weird, sitting here in front of a computer. Think about it. It's fucking weird.

here are some favorite words:

rendezvous
sublime
lumber
steel
steal
blackbirds and something real

ain't no asylum here

2010-01-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

some bad news about a friend and listening to straight to hell. a depressing and beautiful song.

clear as winter ice
this is your paradise

there ain't no need for ya
there ain't no need for ya

go straight to hell, boys
go straight to hell, boys

some evening, somewhere

2009-12-16T20:30:00.003-07:00

In this wonderful, wide world we have lakes, rivers, trees, books, friend's father's ashtrays, strange collections on shelves in the houses of neighbors, peeling paint, anxiety, fake rocks that you plug into a socket so a reptile you keep in a cage can digest its food, bottle rockets, prisons, algae, titles to books that stick with you, porch lights, elation, quotes, pencils with hard erasers that are too short to hold, immense heaps of trash that stretch for untold leagues, rubber bands, fish that live very deep in oceans, moss on oak trees, and more words than you or I will ever speak.

Yep. And there is no map at the corner store to help us navigate. How about that? I mean, where do we start...or, perhaps more importantly, where do we want to go?

For some reason, shitty paperbacks from the 1940s to the 1970s are "collectible." That's strange. They're called vintage paperbacks, you know--they're the ones with painted images on the cover, usually with a woman wearing few clothes or some guy with a pistol and lots of shadows. Do collectors read them? Maybe some do, but most, I think, collect them and nothing else.

And what's with collecting, anyway? I've got nothing against it in principal; I mean, folks probably consider me a collector, what with this comic book thing. And when I was younger, Star Wars, and, before that, Robin Hood books. Really, with the comic books the joy comes from reading them, not from having them. And Robin Hood is just awesome. Seriously. Talk about an anarchist revolutionary.

Anyway, I am just traversing this blank screen. Or what was once blank, anyway. I didn't set out to write about medieval thieves resisting the state (or however you think of Robin Hood), but this is where we are.

Pictures on the wall are weird. There's plenty in our house, but they're still weird. Do people change the pictures on the walls or do they live their lives looking at the same ones?

heroes with insect eyes. and antennae.

2009-11-27T09:52:00.005-07:00

Speaking of comics....here we have Sectaurs #4, purple rock on the cover and all! What will Stellara do? And are choices really either/or...?

welcome

2009-11-25T20:30:00.007-07:00

After a very, very good conversation with an old and true friend. Over the telephone. Now some cold cider. And it's dark.

I have three bottles of beer. There are many thoughts.

Thick soled boots on my feet; this feels pretty sturdy and good.

I remember when this friend and I would drive down to a bookstore up there in Fargo and read poetry books, especially by that guy we called a stoned farmer. Or something like that. Ah, those were nights. Even at the time they felt...formative? That's not the word I'm looking for. That reminds me of 'these aren't the droids you're looking for.' Meaningful. That's the word, I think. Simpler than I was thinking. Just meaningful. Of meaning. Of portent.

There are times when I want to drink wine from either a metal cup or a clay jug while crouching on the balls of my feet in a damp cave. Jen often feels the same way. And bread and olive oil. and Bread and Wine is a book.

“Freedom is not something you get as a present,” said Pietro. “You can live in a dictatorship and be free – on one condition: that you fight the dictatorship."

And I wonder how I spend my days....isn't that a strange word to use--'spend'? Like life is a savings account or allowance your suburban parents give to you on Fridays if you do your measly chores. 'Well, if I clean the toilet today, I can spend some of my life on Saturday,' said Chip.

If that's not it, then perhaps life is a paycheck that your boss stamps with a shitty signature every two weeks.

I suppose in capitalism everything comes down to buy and sell, huh? How will I spend my days, then? Maybe I should steal them. Yeah, I think that's it, isn't it? I'll steal my fucking days. I'll steal my days and head for the border. Every border, I guess.

Pietro said that you can live in the most democratic country on earth and not be free. Shevek knows that you can live even in a world predicated on anarchism and not be free, if you give up or forget your critical eye, your challenge to the 'way things are', your revolutionary mindset.

'I gotta fight, okay? I got problems; I gotta fight.' That's Rocky Balboa. Yo.

And now I am still drinking of these three bottles of beer. And maybe you are still reading these sentences. What then, what next? How will you spend your life, your days? Wow, that's a bit too much like an after-school-special or something. Remember that weird tiger thing that introduced that shit? Television. Now, there's a currency that is much spent.

Hmmm. Well, I don't know. Tell them that on your way out, okay? And if you're thirsty, drink.

four colors and newsprint

2009-11-18T09:21:00.003-07:00

So, I've been kinda busy lately, in good ways. But right now I just want to mention that I really like reading comic books. Especially, it seems, comic books from the 1980s. Really, though, I like lots of different comics (I read Waltz With Bashir not long ago--it's pretty moving). But the colors, the newsprint, the letter columns of the '80s--ahhh! With that in mind, I present to you a scanned image of the cover of Starriors issue #1. How do you like that? The quest begins, eh!

begin

2009-10-28T09:23:00.001-06:00

begin

it is day zero
and i am trying to hear the insects

a horizon is not distance
but a place becoming

when i was thirsty
i knew what to do
now that i am here
what signs am i to expect?
now that i am here
how will i arrive?
again i listen for the insects
where is their tongue
and do we know how to meet?

it is day zero
perhaps i need a creed

it is the cool underside of stones
it is the talk between water bugs
on the surface of the drainage ditch
it is my cheekbones that hunger
for the itch of spruce
and the shadow of your hand

righteous

2009-10-11T18:28:00.002-06:00

i'm making some vegan gravy and rocking out to sweet child o' mine. yeah!

...in bed

2009-10-07T21:30:00.005-06:00

I was having a shitty afternoon and evening. I finally left the house and biked a bit in the dark and felt so much better. I was reminded of being outside, walking down sidewalks, during college and feeling very much alive. I remember leaving a building on campus after an evening class and walking under the old trees; everything felt large and expansive and possible and unknown.

This bike ride was just a little bit like that.

And now I am home and drinking a beer after eating beans and toast. Am I in the Britain?

And I remember something that I read that a musician said after a motorcycle accident--something about how if he hurt his hands, he'd figure out something else to do.

Maybe that's in some fortune cookie in another world. In much more eloquent prose, of course.

drinking in fall

2009-10-05T15:34:00.003-06:00

It's been a great weekend--well, I guess it's Monday now, and no longer the weekend--but it was really excellent. Jen and I were able to spend a lot of time together, we had fun with some friends, ate some great meals, went to a free wind symphony concert, and a lot of books-to-prisoners stuff got done.

I went swimming today and it really felt good. Now it's afternoon and a cool autumn day. Perfect for flannels and hooded sweatshirts.

I was in Pittsburgh a little more than a week ago for resistance to the G20 summit. Did you hear anything about that? I'm guessing there wasn't much national coverage of it. I've been to mass mobilizations before; a common criticism is that resistance/protests are practically scripted and end up being a drain on the local communities which, afterward, often end up having to deal with increased police repression. Well, this particular mass mobilization really felt different. I'm not going to get into it here, but it felt like a success. There are several narratives that can be found elsewhere if folks are interested in reading about what happened (like here, for example).

Are people excited about the changing seasons? Anyone? It's nice weather for coffee and beer and hot cider. Maybe even all in the same sitting.

one hundred eighty eight

2009-08-28T18:32:00.006-06:00

the future is here.

that's what i am realizing this moment. i feel like when i was a child reading science fiction comics that came in toy packages. four colors and infinite worlds. we speak like this. and every moment a beginning. sandbars. rivers.

in the fall we had journeys in the yard; we were thieves eating from gardens; we sat in trees and felt the winds of a changing season. everything is real.

the wood is soft from the weather--winters of snow and thaw and summers of sun, heat, and rain. the wood is grey; i lie beneath a tree in the summer, remembering a book from the library. we know it so well--the grass, the trees, the spaces left to move through. i am digging up a message i left for myself in the past. it's too bad the buried note is a thousand miles away and in someone else's backyard. everything is near and no one owns the land.

we are whispering to be heard. we speak through leaves and we touch when we are able. listen--it is the sound of a world turning inside out like a paper bag. it is the sound of the wings of insects. it is the sound of a season changing. we sit beside the creek and listen to the wind moving through leaves.

flannel shirts

2009-08-16T09:21:00.010-06:00

It's been so long since I've written here that I thought I might forget my password, kinda like in high school after a long winter break when you come back and can't quite recall the combination for your locker...at least, that happened to me once.

Summer has been a good experience. I guess it's gone pretty fast but when I look back over the last few months, it seems like it's been awhile.

Lots of time together with Jen, which has been wonderful. That's been one of the best parts of this summer. And I got to visit family for a couple of weeks; Jen and I went up to Minnesota and visited both of our families. My siblings were able to get home during the same time, so it was a big time family get-together. We went up to Duluth and visited my uncle and Gramma; she had just moved up there from Bismarck a couple of weeks previous. At my folks place there was some swimming in the river and the lake, lots of hanging out, some bike riding, and even a golf tournament (even though I've only played golf a handful of times it was a lot of fun...my dad works a bit during the summers at a local course; he teaches golf lessons (he's a pro) and gets to golf a lot of games).

What else...I stabbed my leg with a shard of glass. While washing dishes, a canning jar fell off the drying rack and I tried to catch it between my thigh and the cupboards below the sink. It shattered and a piece punctured my thigh. Jen took me to the hospital and a doctor dug out some little fragments of glass and also brushed a nerve with the tweezers. That resulted in a couple of weeks of nerve sensations in my leg and knee, but it's cleared up now.

Speaking of legs, the cyst in my leg was aspirated. That seemed to relieve the pain for a bit but it has since began refilling. I go back to the hospital next Friday to try the procedure again.

And now fall is coming. It's such a beautiful time of the year. When it's the middle of summer, I love the weather and the feel of the season and autumn seems so far off. And then, when this time comes, I am ready for it and wanting the cool weather, the smell of it and the feel of it. And there is that sense of change in autumn. I suppose it's wrapped up, at least in part, with memories and impressions from school--a sense of something new--experiences, people, thoughts. I would like to come across a quilted flannel shirt. I used to wear those all the time (so did some other people I know!). And they remind me of fall.

So, I'm very much feeling this change of weather, this season rolling in. Along with fresh starts and newness come feelings of personal change and understanding. It's exciting to think about all the spheres of one's life that can change and grow--relationships are a big one and there are lots of relationships--intimate, self, family, friends, worldview, ideas, and on and on.

This idea of change, growth, transformation...I guess it depends on how you look at it. As the weather cools and dusk comes more quickly, some other things seem to be static or, really, status quo. People are still imprisoned indefinitely at Guantanamo. The occupation and war in Iraq continues, while the US government broadens the war in Afghanistan and increasingly spreads it into Pakistan. Gaza is still under siege, blockaded on all borders, while Palestine in general is still under military occupation and Israeli settlements in the West Bank continue to increase. The popular uprisings in Honduras and Peru are ignored. Surveillance and harassment of activists by various government agencies, including the military, continues and seems to be growing (check out the recent case in Washington state, where a US military spy infiltrated an anti-war group in Olympia and Tacoma, which had been organizing actions disrupting the shipment of military vehicles from the ports in the area). And of course, to borrow a lyric, "the workers slave and the rich get more"--that doesn't seem to be changing with the season.

That list could go on and on as well. So could this blog post, it seems! Maybe I'll just write four long posts a year--one for every season...that's about how it worked this summer.

Ronaldo to appear in film about Palestinian refugee

2009-07-25T10:03:00.002-06:00

heya. i'm not gonna write much right now, but i did want to post the following article. i thought a few people--you soccer fans know who you are--might find this interesting.

07/24/2009
Brazil's Ronaldo to Star in Film about Palestinian Girl

Brazilian football star Ronaldo will star as himself in an Iranian movie based on the true story of a Palestinian girl who was killed before realizing her dream of meeting him, according to press reports Wednesday.

The film is based on the true story of 13-year-old Alneyrab who dreamed of meeting the sport superstar during his 2005 humanitarian mission to the region but was only able to watch him from a distance.

She dies in a refugee camp in Southern Lebanon after losing a leg to an anti-personnel mine without ever meeting her idol.

The three-time world player of the year has signed a pre-contract for the Iranian-directed film, his agent Fabiano Farah told the Brazilian sports website Globo website, though he still has to get permission from his club to act in it.

The 32-year-old two-time World Cup champion will appear in some dream scenes, said Farrokh Faradji Chadan, president of the Brazil-Iran chamber of commerce.

The film does not yet have a name.

The movie could start filming as early as September in Lebanon, where Ronoldo would only need to spend a few days shooting, he said, though he did not say how much the all-time leading World Cup scorer would be paid for his role in what Chadan called a “humanitarian” production.

He is set to be in Palestine September with his club Corinithians to play a friendly against another Brazilian club, the Fluminese. The teams rejected requests to play in Israel as well.

Ronaldo had previously visited Israel and the West Bank in 2005 as a U.N. Development Program goodwill ambassador on a campaign against poverty.

(Alarabiya.net)

concerning the offal of capitalism and other happenings

2009-06-17T13:18:00.008-06:00

Here I am in front of a computer again. I got back from swimming a little bit ago and now I'm drinking a cup of coffee. I didn't sit down to write anything at all in particular, so it looks like it's another focus-less post, consisting mostly of personal narratives and updates.

Summer is going pretty well. It feels like it began with the official end-of-school dumpster extravaganza. When students move away for the summer, out of the dorms and out of off-campus student housing, there's a bonanza of the detritus, of the dross, of the mounds of the throw-away, cast-off, easily-replaceable-if-you-have-the-money excess of our glorious industrial capitalist system.

An even partial list of items to be found in the dank depths of roll-off dumpsters could easily take longer to read or write than either of us wants to invest here. It's sufficient to say that after spending time in just a handful of dumpsters, little would surprise you. I was thinking that I might come across a car in one of them, but that hasn't happened yet.

Even in June, there's still some residual move-out dumpster treasures--not on campus, of course, but in apartment complex dumpsters. I guess summer is just all-around a big move-out/throw-out season. At least in places where privelege is manifested as, among other things, consumption and waste.

On quite a different note, I found out I have a cyst in my calf that is likely responsible for the pain I've been having for the last year and a half or so. It's about 8.2 cm long and extends from the tibia/fibula joint in my right leg. And it's nestled deep in among muscles and nerves and is pushing out on all of that, which is what is probably causing the pain, even in my foot. I had a consultation this week with some doctors and surgeons, who showed me the images of the cyst and told me what they wanted to do. They said they'd prefer to cut it out but that it's in a bad place for that, being very close to nerves. They'd have to cut through muscle which would leave scar tissue and they're worried about the possibility of hitting a nerve. So, they decided that the best thing to try is an ultrasound-guided aspiration with a big needle. That way they said they can miss all the stuff they don't want to hit and try sucking the fluid, which is joint fluid, out of the cyst. That should relieve the pressure on the nerves and eliminate the pain. The cyst may refill, at which point surgery would be reconsidered. Or, it may not fill up again or, if it does form again, it may be smaller and not cause pain.

So, that is super exciting for me! Probably more detail than is needed, but that's okay--it comes from my excitement and, in a sense, relief to know what is going on with this pain and that there is hopefully a way to change it.

I was sorta writing about summer....hail comes to mind. I mentioned earlier, I think, about our garden getting thrashed by hail. And then again on Monday, while I was biking to that consultation, it hailed and rained like mad. I was drenched when I finally got there, with welts from the hail. I rang my socks out in the bathroom sink and my feet weren't squishing too much after that.

Jen spent the last few days in the mountains with fellow teachers in her department; they decided to get together to plan and co-plan for next semester and it sounds like they were able to get a lot done.

....

Jen actually just came home, a bit early, while I was typing the above. I stopped writing this post and ended up doing various things with the rest of the day. Now it's evening, which really feels like late afternoon since it's summer. And this post feels long already, so I think it'll end with this--!

go to bed

2009-06-06T01:29:00.003-06:00

It's one thirty in the morning and I would like to have already been asleep for a couple of hours. Instead, I am sitting here. At least I have the song "She's a Refugee" stuck in my head. Still. All day. But it went away for awhile, while I was doing nothing that I wanted to be doing. So, maybe it's a good sign that it's back.

Summer, so far, has been surprisingly rainy. Rainy and inundated with cats. Well, two, anyway. One in particular. It comes around, sometimes just walks right inside our house. She's a cool cat, even if she does use the strawberries as a toilet. The strawberries were planted after she'd already begun using the corner where the porch meets the house, so it's not really on purpose. There's nobody to blame. And she's, like I said, a very cool cat. Likes to rub up against your foot and rolls on her back to be scratched.

So, there's puddles in the alley and we already know what's in the strawberries. And even at this hour, I hear cars on the street. I'm sleepy and my body is tired from swimming and working in the yard. That's my story. What's yours?

finally

2009-05-17T11:37:00.004-06:00

finally

when it all comes
it’s fiery like the sun
it’s burning like our rage
it’s cold as the darkest glacier
it’s silent as a star

when it all comes
we are sleeping
our breasts rise and fall
we are running
breathing hard in the fields

when it all comes
i am alone
whispering secrets to myself
listening to your lips
we are close
and in the darkness
we touch

a song

2009-05-17T11:17:00.006-06:00

looking for a way

you’re working in one of them booths
taking people’s money as they drive their shiny cars
and it’s summer and the sun is bright and hot
it’s summer and the clouds fled a long time ago

you’re a long way from home living in a city
feel like you’re living in a hole in the ground
the street lights make you lonely
and the chatter makes you cold

i want to take your hand and hold it in mine
i want to take your hand and hold it close
your eyes tell your story more than words can say
i know what you're singing
i know where you been

i know how you're feeling that you just want to finish
where you began

b. smith

perspective

2009-05-11T10:43:00.002-06:00

“All of us have a choice--to make our children safe in the world or to make the world safe for our children..."
Ken Wiwa

floors

2009-05-11T10:31:00.003-06:00

I just finished scrubbing the living room floor. And now I must let the floor dry for awhile, so I'm sitting in the back room where this computer is. Why not write a bit here?

It's another beautiful spring day here. It's been alternating between spring rain and sunny days. The garden is growing and it's been fun watching the plants come up. There are a ton of things growing that we didn't plant this year; they came up from seeds from plants that went to seed last fall--lots of lettuce, spinach, and sunflowers. One half of the main area in front of the house is planted in rows--spinach, onions, peas, radishes, beans, carrots, plus the random seedlings from last years plants. The other half hasn't been planted yet but has lots of unexpected seedlings. Today, I think I might transplant the kohlrabi and pok choi that we've been growing inside.

Jen and I had a great weekend together. We didn't do anything really exciting but just spent some time together and enjoyed it. And ate really great food, including a wonderful cake that Jen made.

I've been missing my family a lot lately. We talk on the phone, which is nice, but it's of course not the same as face-to-face time together.

That's about the extent of this post. I'm gonna do some stretching and get outside.

......................

2009-04-30T12:49:00.000-06:00

para todos todo

a tale

2009-04-30T11:44:00.003-06:00

He began life living on a chondrite meteor. How he came to be born, no one knows. But there he was one day, astride a meteor deep in space.

What is the nature of my existence, he asked. Here I am, one day awake and aware. I know not from where I came or what it is I am to do.

Looking around the meteor, he saw what he had always seen. The same landscape; the same ridges, valleys, and shadows. True, the distant scenery changed a little. Stars faded past into obscurity. New celestial bodies slowly came into view. The pinpoints of light changed their patterns, their positions altered, their brightness oscillated. And always he was beneath their brilliance and awed.

Time went on. His name was Alethe. He ate and drank and lived and grew and aged. His dreams were beautiful, terrible, meaningless, trivial, and vital. His fingers were his own, as were his thoughts. In his isolation he created friends, companions. With them he sought communion. In the valleys between the crested, stony ridges lived small insects. With them, too, he sought communion. Gazing into the multifaceted eyes of a dragonfly, he felt his spirit moving between his body and that of the winged insect and he felt the presence of the dragonfly moving in that same space.

He drank water from shallow, shaded pools and was thankful for his thirst. Once for a reason he could not name, he built a low wall of metallic stone. It stood for two days, a short, squat shadow on the landscape. He awoke during the night and walked out to where he had built the wall. Looking at it through the starlight, he suddenly felt regret and anger and remembered a dream he had tried to forget. He slowly took apart the wall, stone by stone. The stones were smooth and angular, like ice or some kind of deep hued glass or steel. A few were rough and full of conglomerates. They felt good on the skin of his hands. He tumbled the stones down the slope, where they scattered and nestled among other rocks.

Alethe slept and dreamed, ate, and drank the cool water from shadowy pools. His life went on. And then one day, for no apparent reason, he died.

The meteor still travels through space, on some uncalculated trajectory. The stars are bright and the nights cool.

-sw

brewing coffee over a gipsy fire

2009-04-29T14:39:00.001-06:00

Under the open sky the light was clear, with a reflection of cold red on the eastern hills. The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more alone.

--Edith Wharton, from Ethan Frome

You be the Soccer Judge!

2009-04-19T12:04:00.007-06:00

A very interesting question, indeed. Here are the choices, folks. Choose wisely--it's quite possible that the fate of smoking soccer players lies in your decision.

A. Of course a player can smoke during a match, so long as they keep the cigarette away from other players' eyes.

B. No. The referee is required to caution the player for an act of ungentlemanly conduct.

C. Yes, provided the player has enough smokes to share with everyone on the field.

D. It depends upon the legality of the substance being smoked. The referee must use personal judgment based on a sound understanding of current drug laws pertaining to the region in which the match is being played.

E. No. If the player does not voluntarily throw out the smoke, the team captain must physically stop the player from smoking to avoid a forfeit (see illustration below).

rambling update

2009-04-17T12:08:00.002-06:00

The snow is really coming down. It's heavy, big flakes right now and I can see the neighbor's roof thick with snow. It's a beautiful day!

I've been gone from home a bit, beginning with a trip with Jen out to the northwest for a wedding and hanging out with old friends. We had a great time with friends and it's always wonderful to see people happy and in love.

We took our time coming back, camping on the Olympic Peninsula in the rain and driving with a storm just about the entire trip. Rock Springs, Wyoming became an unexpected destination--all the roads were closed because of the snow storm and ice and we ended up staying there for two nights. So, we didn't end up getting to the canyons and cottonwoods near Dinosaur and camping like we had hoped, but we had a really fun time anyway. The Cody Motel was the spot to be--it even advertises color tv! And on the last day of the trip, we found a free hot spring--it was hot and wonderful and something we had wanted to do on our trip.

The day we got back, Jen roasted an eggplant in the oven to make some babaganoush. When she took it out the eggplant exploded, with pieces of it hitting her face. Jen got second degree burns on her cheeks, chin, and nose. It was really scary. We went to the emergency room, where she got cold compresses and anti-bacterial cream put on the burns. Jen had gotten the eggplant off her face almost immediately and also flushed her face with cold water until we left for the emergency room and that all seemed to help a lot. After the emergency room, she continued at home with the cold compresses and anti-bacterial cream and then saw a burn specialist a few days later. The blisters looked pretty painful. But they started healing quickly, and by the time I got back to town a couple of days ago, they were healed well and very difficult to even see. Jen has pointed out that she probably has a mutant healing factor, which is pretty cool.

A few days after Jen's encounter with exploding, burning eggplant (the remains of which are still pasted on the walls and ceiling of the kitchen), I left for Chicago to meet up with my brother. We hung out for a day there and then headed for Tennessee with my brother's daughter and a rented car. My folks are living there now, in a cabin by a little creek. We stayed for about a week and I had a lot of fun hanging out together with family. Our folks showed us around and took us to some beautiful places, we played with the dogs, and just spent time talking and being together. My brother's daughter made a great treasure hunt for us, too!

My brother, his daughter, and I headed back for Chicago and got into the city late at night. I ended up staying there for a few more days, hanging out, playing dice with my brother and niece, walking through Chicago alleys, and playing darts in the bar downstairs one night (where my brother's dog joined us!), before getting a train to Denver. And then it was a quick ride with an electrician who had just gotten out of Sterling prison and then with a guy who worked for a vehicle rental company and I was home.

And now it's snowing beautifully. Which is a lot more interesting than this post. But that's okay. Besides, I'm gonna post something here soon that will ask a very important question, so be sure to check back.

resistance

2009-04-01T10:34:00.004-06:00

lukewarm coffee
lots of roads
birds under stars
dark shapes against a sky

with a pencil and scrap of paper
you record your thoughts
like a grocery list

it's like a spring in my heart
these days
i'm so in love
how do you like that?
sounding like some record
with a needle on a lovesong
it's true
even though it's not a commercial
it's like a spring
and i'm so in love

it's not just love that this
culture kills
but, surely, it is one victim
so love and be warmed in the knowledge
of resistance
so love
and feel the echo in the cedar trees
up and down the cottonwoods along
the drainage ditch
within the sand and gravel
so love and know and unknow

beneath the stars at night
i hear the movement of wings
as birds fly out across the field

B.E. Rasir

i broke the law and i used a gun

2009-03-15T11:18:00.003-06:00

I met Kenny Rogers last night. I was at some kind of junior high or high school event/reunion. I saw old friends and acquaintances. It had the feel of some sort of ceremony; we were in a big hall with lots of seating. The lights were low.

At some point Kenny Rogers got up on stage. I was standing nearby and heard him start a really terrible song but it was great because it was classic Kenny Rogers and everyone, including Kenny, knew it. And he sang a beautiful song; I listened to the lyrics floating in the big, darkened hall. I went up to him and told him that I listened to the Gambler album a lot with my folks when I was a kid. I mentioned one of my favorite songs “Tennessee Bottle” and about how I brought my parents’ tape with me when I went to college and listened to it all the time in the dorms. He was handsome and very kind. I got his autograph after we talked for a few moments. Then I realized how cool it would be if he’d sign something to my mom. A small line had begun and, as I looked around, I saw my mom there, already planning on asking for an autograph.

Later, we were in some sort of hallway, it seemed like a hotel, but I think it was still a part of whatever place we’d been at for the school event. I was walking with two other people from school and Kenny. One of the other people was my old friend Damien, I’m pretty sure. I was dressed in puffy red pants and a puffy blue grey jacket and I wondered why the hell I was wearing such stupid clothes.

We reached some sort of opening in the hallway, a lobby of some kind, with two beds in it. Kenny got ready to lay down in one—apparently, he didn’t have a room for the night. We all talked some more and I gave Kenny a hug and I thought again, why the hell am I wearing this puffy jacket and these red puffy pants? We weren’t all celebrity-worship, we were just chatting but then Kenny said “You’re all starting to hang out,” which, it was obvious, meant “I’m trying to go to sleep now and have had enough.” So, we took off.

I exited some doors from Hughes Junior High and went outside to get my bike. It was dark with a big night sky. Once I got to my bike, there was a combination bike lock around it and I couldn’t remember the combination. So, I went to my grandparents’ place, thinking that if I could just find a calculator, I’d be able to recall the combination. I went into my grandpa’s office and tried to use his computer but I couldn’t remember the password for it. I was a bit frustrated until I picked up the keyboard and a calculator fell out from it. I tried using it but the batteries were dead. The computer had batteries, too, so I took those out and tried them in the calculator, but it still wasn’t working. My grandpa, who was out in the kitchen, heard some noise as I was changing out the batteries and yelled “what the hell are you doing?” He was really mad. I yelled back “all these fucking batteries are dead!” Then he came storming in, really irate. I got up and we yelled a bit as I was leaving. Getting out into the garage, I noticed his black pickup truck was dirty, so I found a hose and started washing it off. I heard my dad’s voice say “I’ll ask Papa tomorrow who cleaned his truck.”

2009 (ode to never having the answer)

2009-03-14T09:38:00.003-06:00

an apple
when sliced
and we are bleeding
the ambulance is far away
and will not arrive

so i look at the slices
of apples which in all of creation
are perfect
hard flesh, black
seeds

so, i wrap them up in tinfoil
and gunpowder with a
homemade fuse
"light fuse and get away"
always made me laugh in
the heat of summer alleys
but its for real with these
seeds. i light fuse
and get away

i know my physics, engineering is
all bad
it'll never make it out of the
atmosphere but the shiny package
of life will make it high above, there
to be caught in some continental jet
stream

someday depositing, gently,
the seeds

i don't know what's with the tinfoil
i guess it's all i had in my pocket
during those dark hours
it won't get in the way
nothing does

apartheid and palestine

2009-03-13T14:01:00.001-06:00

Gaza is again out of the headlines. However, the struggles in Palestine continue, regardless of corporate media’s silence.

Days after the “end” of the invasion of Gaza, Israel seized 425 acres of the West Bank of Palestine to expand Israeli settlements. Then, on March 2, Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry’s plans to double the size of settlements in the West Bank, by appropriating more Palestinian land and demolishing Palestinian homes, became public; construction has already begun.

There are over 200 Israeli settlements with 400,000 settlers throughout the occupied West Bank. The settlements are clearly and overtly illegal under international law, and blatantly aimed at making Palestinian independence impossible. The current expansions intensify Israel’s practice of creating isolated pockets of Palestinian communities. The wall Israel is building far into Palestinian territory and Israeli-only roads that dissect the West Bank further separate and cut-off Palestinian communities from one another. The wall, roads, and settlements—tools of colonization—function to create what many identify as Bantustans. This term, which originated in apartheid South Africa, refers to forcibly segregated, unconnected enclaves of subjugated people.

This historical apartheid parallel is why the Congress of South African Trade Unions, representing 1.2 million workers, has called for a boycott of Israeli goods until the situation is justly addressed. Likewise, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union has announced it will stand in solidarity with Palestinians. These dockworkers, many having experienced apartheid in their own lives, took action on February 8, refusing to offload a ship carrying Israeli goods. During apartheid South Africa, this tactic was part of the success of the anti-apartheid movement. In 1963, Danish dockworkers refused to unload a ship carrying South African goods. Workers repeated this action when the ship tried offloading in Sweden. Eventually, British and American dockworkers adopted the tactic, adding to an increasingly powerful movement.

It will take more than courageous South African dockworkers to end the occupation of Palestine. The occupation is alive and well-funded, beyond the use of settlements to destroy prospects for Palestinian autonomy. Gaza is still, after almost two years, under siege. All borders are blockaded; food is scarce; hospitals, schools, water and sewage systems are destroyed. 11,000 Palestinians, hundreds of them children, are in Israeli prisons. The West Bank is still under direct military occupation. Settlements, Israeli-only roads, checkpoints, sniper towers, Israeli military bases, and tanks cover the landscape. Between February 26 and March 4, in events that occur with stark regularity, two Palestinians were killed; another died of an earlier gunshot to the head; 12 were wounded, several by Israeli missiles—including five children and a journalist; and 31 were abducted by the Israeli military. Nonviolent resistance to the occupation continues, as it always has. Last month in Jayyous, a farming village that’s had 75% of its agricultural land stolen by the wall, a Palestinian was shot by Israeli military during a nonviolent protest. In similar protests against the wall in Jayyous, the Israeli military killed two children in December and shot a Swedish activist in January.

Reciting this litany of murders doesn’t adequately explain the devastation of the occupation, nor does it bring about its end. However, as with South Africa, an international movement using diverse tactics in solidarity with liberation movements in Palestine can end this system of death and oppression.

do you take the well-lit, descending tunnel to your left or the dark passageway with a slight breeze on your right?

2009-02-18T10:12:00.012-07:00

i just got back from swimming this morning. i feel great! so, now i'm drinking a cup of warmed up coffee while some oatmeal is heating up on the stove.

i sat in on a class at the university yesterday; it's the second time this semester i've gone to the class. it's taught by a professor that i know and really like. the first day i came, he told the class "public education should be free. if you know anyone who's interested in coming to this class, please invite them." the class is called Capitalism and Global Ethnic Conflicts.

it's been some time since i've sat in a desk in an official class. it's enjoyable being able to listen to the teacher and all the various perspectives from other students--there are lots of different experiences and ways of seeing the world that people bring to that setting and it's great to be able to listen and interact with that dynamic.

and here is some exciting news: at the public library there are some shelves devoted to books available for donations (.10-$1.00 a book) that go towards the library (i've been picking up some books there for the books-to-prisoner project). well, i was dropping off a book last week in the outdoor slot--i wasn't planning on going inside--when i had a feeling. i went in and scanned the shelves, my eyes stopping on three familiar book spines--fighting fantasy books! there were three different ones--caverns of the snow witch, deathtrap dungeon, and island of the lizard king. do you know these kind of books? they're what lots of folks call gamebooks and, really, they are solo roleplaying books that usually utilize a choose-your-own-adventure type format augmented with dice (or other random number generator), various character attributes, fairly complex plots, and often narratives that continue from one book to another.

it's been awhile since i've happened across some of these kinds of books. i really like them and have since i was a kid and was reading the lone wolf series. the lone wolf books really captivated me--i remember waiting eagerly for the next in the series to come out, going to the bookstore in the mall and checking the shelf to see if it had arrived. these books had a continuity that progressed from book to book; as you kept playing the same character, the story continued to unfold and develop, oftentimes referencing experiences that had occurred in previous books. this added to the sense of character and plot development and heightened the feeling of authenticity of the world created in the stories.

there were lots of other series written in the 1980s. Grailquest, with it's idiosyncrasies, humor, and darkness, was another i read. and, of course, the fighting fantasy books. many of those are full of mazes and dank dungeons, strange encounters, and fantastic creatures. and there are others, too.

a few summers ago, i went on a hitchhiking trip up to north dakota. it was the first time i had tried a long-distance trip like that and it was incredible. after visiting my grandparents and some friends for awhile in bismarck, i took an early morning bus out to medora, then spent several days hiking and camping in the badlands. the night before catching the bus back to bismarck, i camped on a sandbar on the little missouri river, just outside of town. i remember feeling free. it was one of the most incredible nights of my life. i suppose it was a combination of several things--the whole trip in general, the camping in the badlands, swimming in the river, sleeping on the sand, the proximity of the bridge and road and town that night, and the immensity of the night sky.

the first night i camped on the way up to bismarck, i was near spearfish, south dakota. and it really felt to me like a solo roleplaying book. that's why i started thinking about this trip as i was writing about those old gamebooks. a man driving a work van (i think he was employed with some cable company) dropped me off in the late afternoon. i remember that this person said he read all the books his son read--they'd read them at the same time. anyway, i wasn't very familiar with traveling like that and i began trying to decide what to do next--try for another ride, look for a place to spend the night and, if so, where (near the overpass that a creek flowed under, walk a ways out of town, look for something further down the creek). as i was considering the options i could think of, it suddenly dawned on me how much it felt like one of those books--do you take the path with the prints of a large animal through the forest, or do you decide to follow the road west, or do you make camp in the forest for the night?

well, i really hadn't anticipated writing about all that when i sat down here while breakfast cooked. i guess that's one thing i like about writing--sometimes it just kinda goes.

not again!

2009-02-15T09:41:00.004-07:00

don't you just hate it when you accidentally lean against the ultra force-shield switch, unknowingly turning it off? i mean, of all the places to rest your pointy little elbow!

excerpt from "buddha in glory"

2009-02-12T08:36:00.004-07:00

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

--rainer maria rilke

ring of slow digestion

2009-02-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I played a few games of Rogue--the old computer game from the early 1980s. Does anyone remember that epic game? The character you play, at least in this version, is a graphic of a smiley face and the creatures you encounter are each represented by a letter on the screen (H=hobgoblin, W=wraith, K=kestrel, T=the dreaded troll, etc.).

You move through level after level of increasingly dangerous dungeons, apparently in search of the amulet of Yendor (I think). I made it to level 15 before I was offed.

In other headlines, it's sunny today and I drank a cup of tea. I also ate two bowls of oatmeal.

bones

2009-01-22T17:44:00.002-07:00

i’m excited at this very moment in time. i want to say that in a voice that sounds like rod serling. ‘case in point’, and then be sure to say the word ‘mind.’ in rod serling’s voice, i mean.

....

a man sits in a house, reading a comic book, while outside the winter sun is setting. black tree limbs are silhouetted against the strange blues of the sky and grey of clouds. he feels the world is immense and suddenly infinitely small at the same moment. it’s as if someone is looking down and across a colossal landscape, horizon to horizon. buildings, trees, mountains, cliffs, spires jut up like the ribcage of some immense skeleton, slowly rotting in the vegetation that is steadily consuming the landscape.

a flash of light, perhaps, catches their attention as they huddle around the fire. high up on the edge of the cliff as they are, they can see out across the expanse of jungle as it breaths the evening air. they look up at the flash of light or the sudden, unexpected noise or maybe it’s simply an impulsive feeling of something creeping into the periphery of vision. the warm light of the fire plays across their faces as they look. what lies out there, beyond the ken of their small wilderness and their small lives?

mlk letter

2009-01-19T21:35:00.004-07:00

Martin Luther King Day has come and gone. Even as Gaza bleeds, police kill unarmed people of color in US cities, and our communities are torn apart by immigration raids, many believe King’s dream has been realized.

On the morning of the 19th, I used a restroom in a public building that had ethnic slurs and violent hate speech carved into the wall, including threats to murder Latina/o people. We are far from realizing any part of King’s vision, including creating a world free of racism and white supremacy. The message etched in the restroom was a glaring reminder of the mentality of some who live in our communities. While it’s terrible that individuals hold such hateful perspectives, it’s really disgusting that this view is reinforced by wider social and political norms.

The US maintains policies that embody the racist worldview communicated in the hate speech in that bathroom stall. Whether it’s “free” trade policies directed at the global south or the more overt imperialism of invasion and occupation of Arabic people, the US government maintains the oppression of other people and cultures around the world—and here at home. We have to look no further than the nearest ICE raid or prison to realize this intimately affects our local communities.

We should honor Dr. King by remembering the full scope of his vision—a dream that challenges racism, patriarchy, militarism, capitalism, and other forms of domination—and by realizing that the struggle is far from over.

i sing of change

2009-01-18T10:49:00.001-07:00

I Sing of Change

Sing on: somewhere, at some new moon,
We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune.
W.B. Yeats

I sing
of the beauty of Athens
without its slaves

Of a world free
of kings and queens
and other remnants
of an arbitrary past

Of earth
with no
sharp north
or deep south
without blind curtains
or iron walls

of the end
of warlords and armouries
and prisons of hate and fear

Of deserts treeing
and fruiting
after the quickening rains

Of the sun
radiating ignorance
and stars informing
nights of unknowing

I sing of a world reshaped

--Niyi Osundare

thin

2009-01-15T17:32:00.003-07:00

well, i don't post much to this place anymore. i suppose there's lots of reasons for that--i've been busy (like everyone, i know), i've been keeping off the internet a bit, and other reasons. i'm not sure i'm really all that enamored with keeping a blog. that's a part of it, too. but i'm writing here now, so i guess i still want to at times at least.

much has been going on globally--gaza and greece come to mind. there have been solidarity actions all over, including here in colorado. the books to prisoner project here is going along pretty well. we're getting books and we are starting to get our name and address out to some prisoners in Colorado.

we're finally gonna eat the pinto beans that we grew in our garden. i remember writing something about that on this blog; the beans are in a pot on the stove right now.

what do people read? i'm curious. write a comment about it if you are so inclined.

i've been swimming lately at a city pool. it's great--it makes my leg feel better and makes me feel so much better in many ways. it's great to find some exercise while i'm getting this leg shit worked out.

now i'm at home and today has been pretty good. the other day i ran into an old friend who i used to work with in archaeology. we were on one crazy project together that went through the winter for months. he doesn't live here and it was really kinda incredible to just see him at this cafe. it was great talking and catching up a bit. lives are maybe more interconnected than i usually realize. or maybe it's mostly random chance, with a few influencing factors.

awhile ago, a person i've been corresponding with who is currently in prison sent me a cd. one of the songs has the lyrics:

until everyone has everything they need

i really like that.

Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto

2009-01-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto

Toronto: Wednesday January 8, 2009 Time: 10:25 am

A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women are currently occupying the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.

The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.

Protesters are outraged at Israel's latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government's refusal to condemn these massacres.They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel's violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.

The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, a Canadian Israeli peace activist and others.

Spokespersons for the group are outside the Israeli consulate.

Source: http://yayacanada.blogspot.com/2009/01/jewish-women-occupy-israeli-consulate.html

i am there

2009-01-07T20:13:00.003-07:00

I Am There

I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother
and a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends and a prison.
I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.
I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.
I have a moon past the peak of words.
I have the godsent food of birds and an olive tree beyond the kent of time.
I have traversed the land before swords turned bodies into banquets.

I come from there, I return the sky to its mother when for its mother the
sky cries, and I weep for a returning cloud to know me.
I have learned the words of blood-stained courts in order to break the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single one:
Home

--Mahmoud Darwish

2009-01-06T12:42:00.001-07:00

hmmm....

poem

2008-12-05T15:53:00.001-07:00

Freedom

My freedom
I shall carve the words in the
earth
chisel their sounds
over every door in the Levant...
below the slope at every street
corner inside the prison
within the torture chamber.

fadwa touqan

palestine dream

2008-12-05T15:03:00.002-07:00

This is something I wrote in October of 2006. I thought I'd post it here.

In a dream I had a couple of nights ago I found myself in the West Bank again, this time with my parents. We were walking along some kind of second storey catwalk above a street or covered market road. Suddenly people around us began yelling “get down!” and waving us down onto the sidewalk. As we were crouching down, I looked over the railing and saw a man on a cellphone. I said “I think he’s calling in our coordinates!” I was, for some reason, under the impression that he was calling in artillery to bomb the area. Then it was he who had some kind of mortar and as he fired it, my mom and dad and I were all crouching down and the shell shot out towards the roof of the covered market. There was intense heat and I grabbed my dad, trying to shield his back from the heat and flames. The mortar exploded in the ceiling and after the heat dissipated, I looked at where the explosion had occurred. There on the ceiling, embossed in gold, was a dollar sign and next to it, where another shell had apparently exploded, “$1.99” was embossed in the gold.

We were very frightened. I talked with some of the Palestinians around, mostly kids, trying to figure out what was going on and if we could still get to Nablus. I asked one boy if we could enter Nablus and he shook his head and said no, it was sealed off. I asked him and then another person, I think, if we could get smuggled in through a truck. Someone said yes, maybe. We were continuing slowly along the elevated sidewalk and approached a cement stairwell leading down to the ground level. I noticed a young man that I thought I remembered from being in Nablus before. I asked him about getting into Nablus in a truck and he thought that yes, we could probably do that and he told us to come with him. I told him that I thought I needed to have a little conference with my parents; I thought we should get out of there, that this wasn’t a good idea for my parents or us all. I turned around to talk with them and my mom was gone. I looked around and asked dad where she was. We immediately started looking around and found her lying in an alcove under a blanket, crying. I knelt down and took the blanket off and tried to comfort her and reassure her that it was alright. I wanted us to get out of there, to cancel our trip to Nablus. I felt so bad for my mom and scared for my parents. I remember looking down the stairwell and watching Palestinians and an older western couple, the man with a grey beard, walking up the stairs. I don’t recall what happened next but I awoke screaming.

the darkness when we sleep

2008-11-21T13:18:00.004-07:00

it is hitchhiking
and the woman and her two daughters stop
my leg is hurting and she notices
by the way i stand on the onramp
her young daughter, 16 or 17, is smoking and i
watch the smoke curl out of the crack of the window
smoke and this little shitty car that often breaks down
and she says “we know how it is, don’t we?”
and looks at her daughters
it hasn’t been easy for them
very little ever is
and the smoke is pulled through that space
between window and door
it’s dark outside
and i spend the night sleeping up high on a huge
cliff of stone and tall grass
somewhere above the great salt lake
in the darkness i feel so alive and so myself
this is why i do this
i feel so myself
in the morning i scrambled back down a steep embankment
crossed the railroad tracks
and walked through a small field
then along the road back to the
little collection of gas stations and street signs
eventually getting a ride on out of there
with a woman and man
the man had a jersey-like shirt with holes and he was
all about sexy music
and there was a cooler full of cans of cold beer
and we drank them as we drove towards a casino and
they told me about their lives
about meeting and this miniature trip they were taking
they offered me a shower in their room at the casino
i declined because i wanted to hit the onramp
i stayed there all fucking day under the sun
no one stopped and after awhile i walked down the
interstate thinking someone would stop
no one did and after a couple of miles
i walked back
it was almost dark
so i headed into town to fill up with water
i had already scoped out a place to sleep the night
just a bit out of town
but then on a whim i walked up to a tractor trailer
that was parked in the lot of the gas station where i was
going to fill up with water
i asked this short guy with a cowboy hat if
he’d consider giving me a ride if he was
headed west
long story short—he said yes and i had hundreds of miles
of listening to talk of god and vengeance
but i wanna get back to the rocks and the slopes out there above the salt flats
and walking in darkness with a pack
and crossing the cold tracks
and finding this perfect, beautiful space among boulders and grass and moss and the pleasant wind that blew through the night and reminded me of everything i had
ever been
in the morning the sun broke above the horizon and i sat on the edge of the cliff
on a big rock whose surface was rough beneath my fingers
there were low, long clouds pulled out across the horizon and the sun
came up in these
and i knew who i was
and the earth was beautiful
eventually i left and i always
like to look at the ground where i slept
the pressed down grasses starting to reach back up
small rocks, the dirt
and every morning a place where i begin

-f

ever

2008-11-14T16:19:00.002-07:00

When we first awoke
Light shining through a window
We said slowly to ourselves
Is this the morning that we finally become what
It is we are trying to be?

Wanda Grigorovich

sat on a hillside

2008-11-13T13:11:00.005-07:00

first of all--i just ate a carrot from our garden and it changed my perception of existence.

i wrote a rambly response to whoever commented on the last post and i'll post it soon. but right now i'm just writing this quick. i found a bunch of records in the dumpster behind a music store this afternoon. i'm listening to stairway to heaven. i just listened to going to california. i love that song! i haven't listened to this album since i was in college. i used to listen to a cd of it but that disappeared when i lived in that basement apartment with blake and christ. remember that shit?

it's windy as hell here today. leaves all over the place. i was almost blown into traffic while biking earlier. it's howling and it's sunny and warm. fucked up this time of year. it's the middle of november, after all.

the record is over. i'm gonna go flip it.

okay. so i didn't flip it. i put on taj mahal, de ole folks at home, instead. it's another one i found today. right now it's beautiful.

i also found a couple of aluminum doors. one today, the other last week, i think. and a big heavy aluminum pot. it looks like aluminum scraping is in my future.

life's pretty big and we try to push it down into this little kernel that we can tell others about in one or two sentences. do you see what i mean? and pretty soon it's winter and the snows are blowing and it's cold and the fucking record skips.

but it's not always that way. sometimes you read a short story that speaks right at you. you can't even get out of the way and there's no mistaking it. sometimes conversations make sense and mean something and you're eating food with people who become friends.

staggerlee
i don't want all your fucking money or your big goddamn hat

just give me a body that works and the sun and wind and snow and give me someone i can know

2008-11-04T08:31:00.003-07:00

Congratulations—you voted! You’ve taken part in an important American tradition that upholds what America really stands for. Let’s take a few minutes to look at what this great nation is all about and how you’ve helped keep our sacred values alive and strong.

Election time is when we unite together as Americans, recognizing that when it comes to participating in elections, we have much in common with each other. After all, both parties and their candidates work to maintain the same system. Regardless of which party you voted for, you’ve voted to support:

War and Occupation!

Whether Iraq or Afghanistan, war will continue under either candidate. McCain will maintain the occupation of Iraq, while Obama will widen the occupation of Afghanistan. Either route will ensure more murder and more atrocities in the name of “freedom.” And, of course, there are always new invasions and new occupations on the horizon!

Imperialism!

Both McCain and Obama, and the parties they represent, will do all they can to make sure that America continues to seek dominance in every area of the globe. Depending on the specifics of a given situation, imperialism will come in the form of violence, military aggression, economic force, and political influence to ensure that America stays on top. And if these don’t work, our elected officials can always employ the tried and true American tradition of using the CIA to overthrow democratically elected administrations that refuse to serve as foreign puppets for U.S. imperialism.

Domestic Surveillance!

Both candidates for the presidency voted to implement the FISA
Amendment Act of 2008, which grants the federal government increased power to spy domestically without warrants. It also gives retroactive impunity to communication corporations that assisted in illegal domestic surveillance during the Bush administration. And, hey, who can blame them? The more we are encouraged through surveillance to self-police ourselves, the more free time police have to put down dissent!

Capitalism!

Have no fear—both candidates will pursue the U.S.’s quest for the expansion of predatory global capitalism and free trade. With either administration, the U.S. will work to ensure that corporations continue to reap huge profits from the labor and resources of others. Of course, it is easier to exploit the oppressed, so much attention will be given to destabilizing and taking advantage of third world economies and populations under the thumb of U.S. backed regimes, using sweatshops, paramilitaries, the institutions of global capitalism (like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and other means of control to further dominance.

Here at home, our lives will continue to become increasingly isolated. Authentic communities are a threat to capitalism and therefore an unfair obstacle to profit. As true community continues to disappear, capitalism will lead the honorable fight to commodify everything around us. In the meantime, let’s keep consuming in an effort to create meaning in our empty lives. It doesn’t hurt to watch a little television when we come home exhausted from work. But don’t forget to vote!

Corporate Power!

And, remember, it’s not just any capitalism but corporate capitalism that these candidates support. Both McCain and Obama voted for the $700 billion bailout. The merger of state and corporate power isn’t socialism, as some suggest—it’s fascism.

And have you ever looked at who funds these candidates’ campaigns? Would it surprise you to learn that the weapons manufacturing industry has given more money to the Democratic than the Republican campaign this election cycle? Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and other war profiteers are just making sure that their missiles will sell regardless of which figurehead sits at the top of this corporate, imperialist machine. Likewise, major investment banks and financial corporations—like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Morgan Stanley—heavily fund both parties, guaranteeing their corporate interests are covered whether a Democrat or Republican becomes president.

The Occupation of Palestine!

Both parties and both candidates are committed to maintaining the occupation of Palestine. 60 years is apparently not enough. As Israel continues to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank and uses the construction of the separation wall to annex more and more Palestinian land, both Obama and McCain provide unequivocal support of the occupation and the U.S.’s financial and political role in its continuation.

Militarization of the Border and Criminalization of Immigrants!

While the candidates may vocalize a moderately different approach to immigration, immigrants will continue to be criminalized, families separated, and people imprisoned and deported. ICE will continue its workplace and house raids, terrorizing people based on ethnic background and the spelling of their last name. All the while, either candidate will make sure the border becomes increasingly militarized. Creating a whole population of scapegoats to terrorize, imprison, and dehumanize is one way for a fascist state to cement power.

Thanks for voting and remember—by dutifully playing our role in maintaining the system as it is, we can change the world!

brought to you by volunteers of the CWF (Capitalism and War Forever)

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Instead of relying on representatives to make decisions which affect us and our communities, we can organize locally, in the real sense of grassroots democracy (not the co-opted term that the Democratic Party is using as propaganda), to address our own needs and desires. Direct action and mutual aid are two tools that we can use to do this.

Direct action means solving problems ourselves—without asking, begging, or petitioning authority. It’s working without representation, actively achieving our own goals through our own actions. Mutual aid is a way of existing with each other, of relating to each other, which focuses on voluntary aid and cooperation that is mutually beneficial to all involved. This becomes possible when we create communities that are truly communities, in which actions that are good for your neighbor are good for you. This kind of interconnected and interdependent community depends on us transforming the ways in which we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world in which we find ourselves.

2008-11-03T07:21:00.001-07:00

Now the mornings are bright so much earlier.

roots

2008-10-30T14:24:00.001-06:00

Radical simply means grasping things at the root.

Angela Davis

the music of invasion and occupation

2008-10-27T11:09:00.003-06:00

This weekend I listened to the Fort Collins Wind Symphony perform “Music for Prague 1968.” It was written by Czech-born Karl Husa as a reaction to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia that began in August of 1968.

The music is filled with dissonance and terrible emotion. There are moments of militaristic nationalism as snare drums beat out marches. There are the sounds of air raid sirens contrasted with the sounds of birds singing. There is terror, fear, pain, sadness, and momentary glimpses of hope. The bells in the song were written to reflect the sounds of Prague, known as the City of a Hundred Spires; they just as viscerally echo the sounds of Fallujah, the City of Mosques. It was an intense and powerful performance that was emotionally exhausting.

Performed in the present, “Music for Prague 1968” is a statement about other invasions, other occupations. The song is Nablus. Gaza. Kabul. It is music for Baghdad 2008.

ate up all of my corn

2008-10-24T20:54:00.002-06:00

the sloop john b is such a good song. it's just so good. i can't explain it. i wish i could have sailed with my grandfather. my grandparents did sail. they sailed around the caribbean a few times. my parents, too. that's not what's going on in the song and now i'm just rambling.

tomorrow there's gonna be a really, really free market. lots of free shit and, most importantly, an effort to get together in a way that is outside of capitalism, that is something different. i've been putting together a bunch of zines to have there, in case folks want to read about the kind of stuff that's in the zines i like.

mostly, i feel like a bunch of things. it's one of those nights that music really feels right. that's not always the way it is with me. some times it is just so right and feels so good.

........................

2008-10-21T13:03:00.000-06:00

remember and that is a tree there in the corn field
and when we wandered in your dream it was i
who awoke and was left with nothing but a memory
that fragments more with every night that passes

i once lived elsewhere
and nibil is my name-o

when rain and sun spoke to my skin in a language
that i was born with
when time had no meaning
and the nights were full of wonder

elephants dance in the garden
the paving stones are loose
with a crowbar and a dream, my friend,
we will upend this universe
and write our destinies in it’s shadow

by the window leaves fall to the ground
when we stand, we stand outside
our hands close together
morning dwells by our bedside
and quickly departs
we are but a moment

m. silihin

seven twenty seven

2008-10-21T07:23:00.001-06:00

I'm drinking hot instant coffee. We're finally out of the regular coffee that we dumpstered last May (except for some hazelnut, which is kinda weird stuff).

It's really foggy this morning and I'm dressed in a pink bathrobe. I stayed up late last night, slogging through endless websites. I think I was looking for meaning online, which is about the most ridiculous endeavor I can imagine. I feel a little more sane this morning. I think the fog helps.

quick list of thoughts as i'm sitting here

2008-10-19T18:09:00.004-06:00

comic books without covers
bean shells
pink horizons and steel blue spaceships
yellow leaves
bookshelves made out of salvaged 1x4s
dry mouth
the rumble of a washing machine
the train tracks that i used to live by
cement walls
that russian night and sweaters
prison cells
teeth and that tooth that we saw yesterday in a drawstring bag
coffee in a glass jar
wood burning stove
standing outside talking and too many bags on his handle bars
cots
woodpile
ax
woodpecker
talons
stoves
and only things that are solid

beans

2008-10-04T10:36:00.000-06:00

We’ve started shelling the pinto beans we grew in the front-yard garden this summer. They were harvested awhile ago and have been hanging from the ceiling of the porch, getting dry and ready to shell. It’s really cool. It’s surprising how much I like it. These hard, speckled beans, they’re actually beautiful. Being able to grow something that has a lot of protein and makes for delicious meals feels really good to me.

We didn’t plant just a ton of them; it was more of an experiment to find out how it was to grow beans. It worked out really well and we’re planning on growing lots more this next spring.

Tomatoes and peppers are ripening, too, and we’re eating lots of those. Tomatoes from the garden are something else.

Why sustainability means anti-capitalism and anti-statism

2008-09-19T20:26:00.002-06:00

This afternoon, I went to a place where I like to sit and think and just be outside. It happened to be somewhat near where the annual Sustainability Fair was being set up for this weekend. While I watched vehicles come and go and listened to the hum of a generator, I thought about sustainability and it's relation to capitalism and the state. So, here are some thoughts:

Capitalism is a system that demands ever-growing markets, profits, access to “resources”, and “sacrifice colonies”—areas where the exploitation of the earth and its communities (whether mineral, non-human animals, humans, labor, land, etc.) is carried out to consolidate capital and enrich the ruling class, corporations, and imperialist nations.

The system of capitalism is always hierarchical in its very nature; capital flows up a rigid hierarchy through exploitation, oppression, class structure, war, and other tools, to be consolidated by the elite and ruling class (whether that is kings, corporations, the wealthy, or whatever terms are appropriate).

The state is a system of social control and domination that serves as capitalism’s protector. Through the state, wars, occupation, subsidization of corporations, and other means to capital accumulation are utilized to normalize, maintain, and expand power. It is the state that codifies the status quo, ensuring that those with power and capital wealth become increasingly more rich and more powerful. The state makes certain that the overwhelming focus of violence is directed down the hierarchy, while punishing through prison, poverty, and death those who find themselves at the bottom of the class system.

Capitalism will always be ecologically devastating, just as it is always socially devastating. At times, this devastation is apparent, even in the centers of accumulation and affluence, although more often it is conveniently obscured and hidden through physical distance (as with sweatshops operated overseas and in the global south by western corporations), insulated class differentiation, and cultural distractions (drugs, jobs, television, and all the other ways in which so many of us are able to ignore the reality of this system). Regardless, the results are the same—isolated people bereft of authentic community, shattered indigenous ways of living and being, ecological devastation, and loss of personal and communal autonomy.

Capitalism is a system that allows only one story, one in which everything—the earth, its communities, human lives—are all a means to profit, control, and power. A truly sustainable world is a world with many stories. It’s a world in which individuals and communities have the power to create their own stories and their own meanings. Those who benefit from capitalism’s hierarchy of exploitation and the system that supports it will continue to grasp onto their single version of “life,” their story that says there is one way to live, one way to exist. But those of us who dream and fight for a richer world, full of the beauty and complexities of life, are struggling for the many stories, the endless ways of being, that are a part of being human and living with this earth and all its communities.

....

"Industrial capitalism, based as it is on the looting of nature and humanity for capital accumulation and power, can only take place where human autonomy itself has been looted."
--David Watson in Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and Its Enemies

How to tell a different story

2008-09-18T12:46:00.002-06:00

There has been a noticeable level of tension and animosity in regards to evaluating the strategy, tactics, and actions during the street resistance in Saint Paul this September. Critique, open dialogue, and honest communication are an absolutely integral component of growth within the anarchist and anti-capitalist “movement;” and the volume of thought and effort already invested in this has been excellent, indicating both a long-term vision and a renewed sense of immediacy and agency.

However, it seems that often these discussions are developed within a myopic perspective that fails to recognize where a significant portion of both our latent and expressed strength lies. Just as capitalism and the state will fail because of their homogenous, inflexible nature, so, too, do we risk embodying this weakness by replicating the patterns of discourse inherent to capitalism and hierarchy and, importantly, structuring our resistance and our relationships in the patterns we have been socialized to accept and reproduce.

What is apparent in many of the reportbacks, arguments, and commentary following the anti-convention actions of this summer, is a trend of buoying one particular element of the resistance in rhetoric and argument, while belittling other aspects of the mobilization.

This method of dialogue follows a tried and true capitalist model of elevation (of product, ideology, tactic, etc.) through comparison and subsequent degradation of the other (product, ideology, tactic, etc.). This weakens our struggle, as it draws lines in the sand, proclaiming one tactic, one strategy, one way of thinking and being, as the correct, the most revolutionary, the most radical, and failing to see the strength in diversity, complementary action, and, at the risk of sounding trite, cooperation.

Simply said, had any element of the anarchist presence in Saint Paul been absent, we would have experienced a different, and likely a more disempowering, outcome. The blocs that roamed the city on the 1st were possible in a large part because a significant portion of the police and other state forces were occupied elsewhere in the city, responding to a variety of tactical applications of libratory desire. Without the blocs disrupting the veneer of impenetrability, the blockades alone would have failed to create an atmosphere of possibility, a space in which not only the realm of the normal and essential of capitalism was attacked, but the spectacle of democracy disrupted.

And all of it, the solidarity, the friendships made, the sound of bank windows breaking, the sense of possibility, would have simply remained a hoped-for future if not for the organizing that set the stage for all of our actions and interpretations of resistance, of insurrection, of action. For one of the first times, I actually feel a part of something that is larger than its pieces, that is a movement, that is a real and powerful thing because of the relationships within it.

In a world where there is supposed to be only one story, we succeeded in creating a different story. That was our success and it is no small thing.

the rooftops

2008-09-17T19:41:00.001-06:00

body bags, cold ditches

it rained in the morning
just like the earth knew
it knew what had happened
and the rain flooded the streets
those streets without traffic lights
the rain flooded those streets
and it tried to drown all that
but it couldn’t
nothing ever will
and it’s the same scene
with some different names
but they’re all the same
sometimes mountains
sometimes streets
or a city or a village
a capital or the country
it’s the eyes behind the sight
it’s the cold bodies with the clothing cut away
there’s a spider on the man’s coat
it’s a black wool coat because it’s that time of year
there is blood on the floor
children straining to see through a grate near the ceiling
the spider is crawling on his coat
the bodies are pulled out like drawers

souvenir from saint paul

2008-09-15T17:53:00.000-06:00

2008-08-14T20:33:00.001-06:00

a something that rattles in a dry gourd
sounding old and thoughtful

with a turn of the wind and a name for the clouds
pointing, my fingers are in rust, ink,
and wood polished with the scent of use

these months move by, they blow by
and now it is late summer and a storm
has passed
it is late summer
and the trees are dark against the sky

when i can escape the present
this very exact minute
when my fingers remember what it is they do
and the whispers of existence
find their way through the sidewalks and electric lights
when i throw it away and, finally, turn and walk
towards something real there by the cliffs
this is when i hear my footsteps and the
air is bright and full

r. budiasky

Gitmo on the Platte

2008-08-14T11:14:00.002-06:00

‘Gitmo On The Platte’ Set As Holding Cell For DNC

DENVER – CBS4 News has learned if mass arrests happen at the Democratic Convention, those taken into custody will be jailed in a warehouse owned by the City of Denver. Investigator Rick Sallinger discovered the location and managed to get inside for a look.The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver.

Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire.

“This is a secured environment,” Capt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department told CBS4. “We’re concerned about how that’s going to be utilized by people who will be potentially disruptive.”

In past conventions, mass arrests have taken place.

With Denver’s jails already overflowing, new space had to be created and officers trained.

Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads “Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.”

CBS4 showed its video to leaders of groups that plan to demonstrate during the convention.

“Very bare bones and very reminiscent of a political prisoner camp or a concentration camp,” said Zoe Williams of Code Pink.

Williams was one of those arrested at the Republican Convention in New York in 2004.

“That’s how you treat cattle,” said Adam Jung of the group Tent State University. “You showed the sign where it said stun gun in use and you just change the word gun for bolt and it’s a meat processing plant.”

Gale would not discuss the facility at this time.

“We want to make sure we got our game plan set,” he said, “We want to make sure the entire procedure is laid out all the personnel know what they are supposed to do.”

The plans were to keep this lockup a secret, at least for now.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will ask the City of Denver how prisoners will get access to food and water, bathrooms, telephones, plus medical care, and if there will be a place to meet with attorneys.

The protesters have already given this place a name: “Gitmo on the Platte.”
© 2008 CBS Television Stations Inc

Ni'lin

2008-07-21T10:48:00.004-06:00

I came across the following article posted at www.infoshop.org and thought I'd pass it along here.

A West Bank Town's Fight to Survive

"Jerusalem bulldozer 'terrorist' kills 3 in rampage," read the headline of a CNN article describing the recent attack of a Palestinian construction worker that left three Israelis dead and scores wounded. A Google news search indicates that the brutal assault was mentioned in 3,525 news articles. USA Today, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera as well as all the other major media outlets covered the incident. Lesser-known media sources, such as the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates, the Edmonton Sun in Canada and B92 in Serbia, also featured the event. Indeed, one could safely assume that almost all news outlets around the globe provided some type of coverage of the attack.

Another Google news search, this one using the name Ni'lin, produces only seventy-five results. A few major outlets have carried the story about the brave resistance to Israeli seizures of land staged by the residents of this Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, but CNN, the LA Times and USA Today have not. Sources like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times provided a short caption, no more. Considering that over the past two months the residents of Ni'lin have managed to make a mark on the history of popular opposition, the limited coverage of their campaign is not a mere oversight.

Ni'lin's story is one of incremental dispossession. The residents of this agrarian town lost a large portion of their land in the 1948 war. After the 1967 war, Israel took advantage of the town's location near the internationally recognized Green Line and began confiscating its land for Jewish settlements. First, seventy-four dunams (four dunams equal one acre) were expropriated for the settlement of Shilat. Next, another 661 dunams were seized to build the settlement Mattityahu. In 1985, 934 dunams were confiscated to build Hashmonaim, and six years later 274 dunams were appropriated for Mod'in Illit. Finally, in 1998, twenty more were sequestered for the settlement of Menora. All together, more than 13 percent of the town's land has been expropriated for settlements.

In 2002 Israel began building the separation barrier, which is illegal according to the International Court of Justice. Recently construction of the segment near Ni'lin began; if it's completed, an additional 2,500 dunams, or about 20 percent of the land that remains in the residents' possession, will be seized.

This time, however, the residents had had enough. In the beginning of May they launched a popular campaign to stop the dispossession, and despite the brutal attempts to suppress the uprising--which has included a curfew and shootings that have left close to 200 people injured -- they are unwilling to bow down. This is no minor feat, since the annals of history suggest that it is extremely rare for a whole town to stand up as one person and practice daily acts of disobedience, particularly when confronted with such a violent response.

The events unfolding in Ni'lin also provide the perfect ingredients for a good story. During the first three days of the curfew ambulances were not allowed into the town; the body of one deceased resident was kept for four hours at Ni'lin's entrance before the military let his family bring in the remains for burial; a woman in labor was prevented from leaving the village and was forced to deliver the baby at home; a 12-year-old boy was taken from his home by soldiers and held for two days without charges; elderly women were beaten; and three residents were seriously wounded by live ammunition.

So why do most media outlets fail to cover this ongoing campaign? The reason is straightforward: covering the struggle in Ni'lin would shatter the stereotypical perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict provided by mainstream news sources. Unlike the bulldozer attack, which reinforces the pervasive understanding of this conflict, the events in Ni'lin uncover a much more complex reality. This story does not involve Palestinians perpetrating terrorism against a civilian population but rather popular acts of civil disobedience that persist despite the ruthless repression of an occupying power.

Another aspect of Ni'lin that goes against existing stereotypes is that Palestinians and Jews are not fighting on different sides of this fray, but rather scores of Jewish Israeli and international activists are standing beside the Palestinians residents as they try to stop military bulldozers from destroying Ni'lin's land. Indeed, among those injured are many Israelis.

The story of Ni'lin is, in other words, the story of a colonized people resisting colonization. This is not the way the mainstream media has been accustomed to portraying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and judging from the Google news results, most editors are not ready to change their approach. The historic campaign in Ni'lin--as well as many other nonviolent, mass civil disobedience campaigns against the occupation in places like Bi'lin and A'ram--is still unfit to print.

Afterword

When the military realized that violence on the ground cannot stop the residents' emancipatory drive, it began arresting both Palestinian and Israeli protesters in the hope that hefty legal costs would do the job. To support the legal expenses incurred at Ni'lin, click here http://www.awalls.org/donations.

Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University. Read about his new book, Israel's Occupation (University of California Press), and more at www.israelsoccupation.info.

prisoners, letters, books

2008-07-20T20:24:00.003-06:00

I'm sweaty. And drinking hot tea. It's a really good combination--hot summer weather plus hot drink.

Somewhere, somewhen, someone asked how the prisoner support thing is going. It's okay. I've been writing to a prisoner stuck in some prison here in Colorado. The group hasn't grown at all. I'm not very surprised. But I do have an idea for "Unchained Letters" (that's the prisoner support group) during the anti-DNC protests. Monday of the convention has a theme of 'end the prison industrial complex/support political prisoners' and it would be great to have a space set up where people could write quick letters to prisoners. We could supply a list of political prisoners and people could write to whomever they wanted. Letter writers could just stick their letter in an envelope with the name of the person they are writing to written on it and then "Unchained Letters" could bottom-line getting the letters mailed after the convention.

One of the reasons this idea excites me is that it is a way to create something more out of a mass mobilization like the convention protests. In other words, the end result of the protests are not just a bunch of people converging on a city, some getting arrested, and then everybody taking off. Along with all that would be a big flood of letters of support sent to prisoners (and there are other things folks are working on to help ensure that the conventions aren't just a one-time, big protest without any effect outside of that time and space).

Anyway, the idea is exciting.

I was recently in Olympia, Washington. There was a lot of really great stuff going on there--sustained projects, radical communities, real resistance to the war in the form of blockading weapon shipments sent from the port. One project that I checked out is a books to prisoners project that has been going on for about seven years in Olympia. Prisoners send written requests for books (these requests vary from specific titles to very general requests for something to read) and then folks working on the project search through a huge selection of donated books, find something appropriate, package it up, and mail it off. It is really, really awesome! Maybe the prisoner support group here can some day grow into a project like that!

today

2008-07-18T14:58:00.003-06:00

It's been some time. Lots of different things happening and some things the same. And now music in the afternoon and a feeling that things are happening. There is movement that cannot be contained. There is motion like water, like waves against the shore, like currents, like the sky at night.

stones resting neath the currents of the river--cool, dark, and thirsty

2008-07-17T20:54:00.001-06:00

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

direct action and elm seed snowfall

2008-06-03T13:34:00.000-06:00

I’m inside on a beautiful day, but only for a short while. I’m at a computer lab on campus, formatting and printing some fliers for a direct action film series that a friend and I have put together.

In fact, I’ve been really busy lately—that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been posting anything on here for awhile. Busy with anti-convention organizing, here and in Denver. It feels good and exciting.

I’ve also been doing some gardening. Much of the front yard has been turned into a garden. We’ve had some help from a friend and that has made it seem more like the community-oriented garden we had hoped for.

Elm seeds fell like snow a few weeks ago and covered the open dirt of the garden. Now, they’ve started sprouting and so we spent some time the last couple of days deciding to not become an elm nursery. It’s looking pretty good and lots of stuff is coming up—peas, radishes, carrots, spinach, lettuce, onions. And the kohlrabi, tomatoes, and peppers that we started inside are now doing great in the dirt. A few unanticipated squash plants or something similar are also growing—a pleasant side effect of putting all the food we’ve composted into the garden.

nakba

2008-05-15T07:59:00.009-06:00

It's the 60th anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. It has now been 60 years since Palestinians were forced from their homeland and became refugees, many walking barefoot to Gaza and the West Bank, living in caves before the first refugee camps formed.

I talked with some old women and men in the Askar refugee camp outside of Nablus during my last stay in the West Bank. They remember being forced from their towns and villages, their homes, as soldiers invaded. They remember being told that they would be allowed to return home. Now, 60 years later, there is no end to the occupation in sight and Israeli settlements continue to be built in the West Bank. Now, 60 years later, Palestinians are still waiting.

unchained letters

2008-05-13T10:35:00.002-06:00

A few months ago, a friend and I started a project called Unchained Letters: Fort Collins Prisoner Support. Jen came up with the name Unchained Letters after I spent many days unable to think of a good name. It is basically a prisoner support, via pen-pal correspondence, project. We have both a zine, which outlines our goals and activities and includes tips for writing to prisoners, and now a blog. I just put it online yesterday; it’s very basic and will hopefully be expanded upon. You can visit it at: www.fortcollinsprisonersupport.blogspot.com

A few days ago, I got my first letter back from an individual imprisoned here in Colorado. I had written to him after finding his name and address at an online political prisoner website. It felt really good to read the letter and listen to what he had to say. I was unsure how supportive just writing letters would be but, through his letter, he told me that he was very excited to correspond for several reasons. He said it was good just getting a letter, it helped to keep him in touch with the outside world and ongoing struggles there, and helped him to grow through discourse. I wrote him back yesterday and I really enjoyed writing the letter. It was much different than when writing to someone you already know—we have a lot of questions for each other and are interested in what the other thinks about, what inspires each other, and things like that. I am already very happy and excited to be involved in this project. And I’m looking forward to reading the next letter!

May Day

2008-05-01T13:28:00.005-06:00

Happy May Day! Today is a good day to think about how capitalism and the state maintains its grip on our lives and the lives of those around the world (and hopefully take action with that in mind). Today is a good day to think about how to destroy or make obsolete capitalism and the state (and take action with that in mind). That's some of what May Day makes me think about.

Take Back the Night

2008-05-01T13:23:00.005-06:00

I wrote a post a few days ago but then, before posting it, I got involved in some other things. By the time I got back to the computer it was gone--maybe I had accidentally closed it. At any rate, the post was about this year's Take Back the Night. I don't want to try to rewrite what I had written and the experience is not as fresh in my mind. So, I'll be short and to the point. This was the third time I've written about Take Back the Night on this blog. The event is always powerful and should be a wake-up call for all of us who have the privilege of not having to think about gender and sexual violence. I dream about a world in which there is no more Take Back the Night because there is no need for it.

a tale of an aluminum capitalist

2008-04-21T20:33:00.007-06:00

I've been sorta angry today. Angry about my foot and leg pain and angry about communication. There have been a few different experiences/situations today that have involved shitty communication between people--sometimes with purposeful actions that have angered me and sometimes things that have not been purposeful. I don't even know why I'm bringing it up here; I just sat down to this and figured I'd write something.

On a different note, I can take this opportunity to mention how I made some money recently (and I'm talking about some serious cash). I guess you could say I'm practically gainfully employed now. It all started when Jen and I decided we should really get rid of our old aluminum cooking pots. There are questions and uncertainties regarding the health risks of using aluminum cookware. You almost certainly scrape off pieces of aluminum in the process of using them--sometimes microscopic fragments and sometimes, if you are like me anyway and use whatever metal utensil happens to be at hand (fork or otherwise) to scrape at whatever you just burned the hell out of off the bottom of the pot, possibly big scraps and slivers.

Anyway, all that is supposed to maybe, possibly, but probably almost surely be pretty rotten for you. At first we thought we'd drop the pots off at the nearby Goodwill but then realized that that's a pretty classist thing to do. I mean, aluminum pots aren't good enough for us, because we'd like to minimize, to the degree possible, environmental factors that might contribute to brain health problems as we age but aluminum cookware is good enough for anyone who can't afford steel, ceramic, or glass pots and pans. See what I mean? It's the same as thinking, well, this crappy thing, whatever it is, is gonna be a health risk, so I'll just give it to someone else with less access to income because, of course, something is better than nothing and they should just be damn happy that I'm so generous.

So, then we had the idea that we should recycle the aluminum. I unscrewed the knobs and handles (and when I couldn't do that, shattered them with a hammer), loaded up the three pots in my bike basket, and took them down to this metal place that I've been to before when I worked for the nursery. It's kind of a weird place; whole yards full of junked metal stuff and warehouses with a guy warming himself by a propane heater in the winter while cutting the cords off of cell phone chargers and throwing them into a huge mound of wires. At least, that's what I remember from my nursery trips.

Well, this time I was there on my own, with three pots worth their weight in gold. Or aluminum, anyway. The guy working in the aluminum district of the metal metropolis took a look at them and put them on a scale--they weighed in at just over three pounds! He did some quick calculating, filled out a carbon-copy invoice thing, and then gave me $1.65! Not knowing what to do with such an exorbitant amount of cash, I quickly left before I did something irrational with it. Gripped by an unknowable force, a passion, I biked home in a blur of unimagined riches and gargantuan desires.

I've heard that all it takes to make someone a capitalist is to give them a little money and, wow, is that ever right. You know, now that I've been exposed to the lure and lust of cold cash, I understand the lengths capitalists go to make profit. My own desire for material wealth now knows no limits, nothing is out of reach, and no means to profit are off-limits. In fact, I think I've finally figured out what I was put on this earth for--aluminum scavenging, and reaping the benefits thereof. No pot, no pan will escape the designs of my plan. Just as every dollar, every penny will succumb to my inexorable will. I am an architect of capital accumulation! I am a magnet to the metal that is cash.

the fire and the word

2008-04-18T09:14:00.006-06:00

I've been up and down since getting back here from Bismarck. At the moment, I feel like it's all been down, or at least a foggy nothing. I know that's not really the case but it's there all the same.

Last night I was reading and ended up staying up to finish the book. It was Tender is the Night. Maybe it has been part of the reason I'm feeling this way. But probably it's just complimentary.

Just two nights ago I went to a presentation by a journalist who has spent seven years in Chiapas with the Zapatista movement. Her name is Gloria Munoz Ramirez and she's from Mexico City and is traveling with her friend and interpreter, giving talks. It's in conjunction with a book she's written about the history of the Zapatistas; all the money from the books goes to support autonomous communities in Chiapas.

I was going to leave part way to go to an activist meeting but it seemed much better to listen. It was the right choice. And it was an exceptional talk and it was so good to listen. There is a lot for all of us to learn from struggles like the Zapatista movement. I think we need to listen. This world that many of us want (and I don't mean it looks the same to everyone who wants transformation but I think these different visions have a lot in common)is already happening in some small places and with varying success (and I mean happening in the face of the very systems that are the source of oppression and exploitation--not just communities that have existed in the past within much different social structures). It was a very good thing to realize this and to think what that means.