Being on time

Imagine you are in a polychronic part of the world, which according to Wikipedia is basically everywhere except the US. Picture yourself sitting in your apartment texting with a colleague who lives in your same village. You are under the impression that you'll leave (you and the colleague) at about 14:00 for an evening meeting. So you message at 13:42 asking if the colleague is ready for y'all's carpool. Your colleague responds "another half hour." What does that mean, in terms of actual minutes? Think about it.

On my end, my first thought was "he says a half hour, but really means an hour." So I settled myself down in the apartment for a little more puttering, time spent dressing and organizing myself, and reading.

About 45 minutes go by and I think, "ya know what, I'll just make myself available at the street level in case he's around and ready." So I pack my laptop and notepad into a backpack and head up to the local, family-run mini-market situated conveniently between my apartment and the colleague's home. Turns out the colleague was running around the market and his car taking care of a few last things, basically puttering and packing for our drive. We set out a few minutes later, at which time I learned that we were picking up one more person on the way out of town. And here's the kicker:

Upon picking up the third person for the carpool, my colleague mentioned to this new guy that "Ben is the reason we're five minutes late." Can you believe it!?! I'm smiling writing this because my colleague had said it mostly-jokingly, and whatever time we left town - and arrived at our meeting - was when it was supposed to me. My additional puttering time, the colleague's vagueness about when to get together, and the few minutes our third passenger spent waiting in front of his apartment - it all led basically to (a) not being late and (b) all being right on time (if that is actually what we were) :-)

unrelated practice photo (though three people running uncoordinatedly might in fact relate to this blog's topic)

Ultimate Peace 13 - Getting Into Some Afterthoughts

Now that I have returned from Ultimate Peace Camp and jumping all over the Middle East, I get to jump all over the place in terms of reliving and blogging the experience. First off, some of the multicultural moments from camp. Great memories, as anticipated, came from the dance floor.

Evening activities committee (group of a few coaches) had the whole week planned out pretty well, from ice-breakers to a talent show, galaxy quest to camp slide shows. But for the second or third evening of camp, we had only a few details lined up in pulling together Cultural Night.

We chose to highlight Arab, Israeli, and American cultures in several different ways. Started by planning three dances - one from each culture:

• the Israeli hora
• the Arab dabka
• the American cupid shuffle

Also had desserts...baklava was involved. And every player and coach was responsible for learning to write their name in three different languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew).

Here are two pictures of the cupid shuffle. You can tlel the crowd went from learning to enjoying pretty quickly.

Also, here is a video of dancing under a full moon the last night of camp:

Harvard professor

At no point in the stories about Henry Louis Gates, or his wikipedia page, is it evident that the guy has a doctorate. Certainly he has a top-notch resume of professional accomplishments.

But he broke into a house. Then got angry, loud, and was arrested. That sounds legit... if I were a police officer at the scene of a break-in and there was one guy fitting the description, and the suspect was resisting arrest, I would probably arrest him.

But there are several matters complicating the story; and there appears to have been evidence that Mr. Gates proved his residence there with a state and university ID (although this article says he initially resisted that request). Supposedly, Mr. Gates' driver was out in front of the house... an odd juxtaposition for a Harvard academic.

The Cambridge police are calling the incident "regrettable and unfortunate." The officer should simply apologize and end it. Why is he refusing to apologize? Possibly because Mr. Gates offended him personally.

I doubt the refusal to apologize is solely due to Gates being Black. But the situation (officer approaching the house, resolving the dispute, hauling him off to jail with a trumped-up charge) would probably have gone another way were Mr. Gates to be a "Dr." Gates or white.

Not Live Blogging

The Faith and Politics Institute hosts, along with a local legend you all are aware of, a Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Selma, AL. This year, the Civil Rights Pilgrimage had a special significance with the election of President Obama, the appointment of Attorney General Eric Holder (who I got to meet), and well the Presidential election was pretty big.

Anyway, a group of students gathers at 6am to board a charter bus headed for Selma. We detour a little in Montgomery, to see the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Southern Poverty Law Center. When we get to Selma, we immediately walk to the Brown Chapel AME Church for a service commemmorating the Bloody Sunday event in 1965. 

The students got to meet Eric Holder and Al Sharpton, and visit with Congressman Lewis. Then we marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge...  here's me on the bridge: 

post scriptum: with all the instant-update potential of the web, I sometimes fear that posting something that happened in the past (its been a month since the selma trip) will be frowned upon. But Twitter is for instant updates and this for more in depth-y posts. Speaking of which, if you didn't see the new box on the right-hand side, check me out on twitter. 

What Really Grinds My Gears

What really grinds my gears is narrow, poorly focused, and racist news. Recently I read a series of articles from the New York Times through their Freakonomics pages. And while Freakonomics has some interesting and fair ideas on this country's news and social sciences, they miss the mark severely in this article on increased crime and its correlation with public transit expansion.

Dubner discusses an East St Louis crime 'boom' -- along a new corridor of public transit. He uses the crime as a sign of what's possible when urban riff-raff is shuttled to nicer areas. And from interviews with store staff at a suburban mall, he gathers that crime has "gotten exceedingly worse since August 2006, when MetroLink opened a stop just 500 yards from the high-end shopping center."

Its important to hold the phone here and note the racial implications of what is being said and how. First off, public transit (urban) and high-end shopping center (suburban) speaks volumes to me, first off, of the economic and racial division being portrayed. Its a division embedded in US geography of the last 50 years - undesirables in the city and high-class shit in the suburbs. 

Secondly, at no point in the article does Dubner refer to the young people, who presumably recently arrived at the mall, as 'students' or 'citizens.' The young people are instead labeled 'them,' 'juveniles,' or 'troublemakers.' This is a common tool used to de-humanize another class or race; and it reeks of privilege/bias.

But the most important mis-framing that Dubner has done here is to isolate crime in this mall and neighborhood -- as opposed to the community/city/region as a whole. What he ignores is the crime rate and experiences of all folks (urban and suburban) over the last few decades. What I read here is that East St Louis residents have been victims and witnesses to crime for a while now... much higher than the national average... not just as a result of public transit's expansion.

And although crime (at the suburban mall included) is inexcusable; what is equally inexcusable is a display of journalism based solely on white or upper-class experiences - responding to trends felt by white communities only. By ignoring crime in all of East St Louis, historically and presently, Dubner reminds us that the suburbs are treated as sacred space... sacred to white people, like Freakonomics author Dubner.

You may be thinking: "not all journalism can tackle everything in one article; this is a trend worth looking at." And I agree that an increase in crime is worth looking at. But what isn't written/recorded, at the expense of this news piece, is the experience of the rest of St Louis. More likely, the silenced majority in inner St Louis that has experienced crime on the regular, is not written about. 

Comment please.

This post's title - the cliche phrase - comes to mind ever since I saw a Family Guy episode where Peter gets a segment on the evening news. Peter basically opines about shit that pisses him off. Here's one clip.

Inauguration Good Night

With all the drama and major legislation marking up the beginning of Obama's administration, its now a certainty that he's in office. So I should really close out the whole series of posts from Inauguration. I did the final picture purge yesterday; today's a little emotional additive.

Here's what I recorded the evening I got back to Atlanta after inauguration weekend. Setting is I'm in my rocking chair for the first time in a week, about to close my eyes for the night, and wanting to grasp the moment just a little longer. I'll let it speak for itself...

I'm resisting the temptation to get in bed and let the weekend slip into a memory. Now the inauguration,t he people and closeness of humanity, and the weary feeling of travel there/back... these sensations are still frseh in my heart and body.

The ten hour drive from dc today went well though I could feel the distance before I had even departed. Instead of visiting friends latel ast night I chose to retire early (if 1am is early). And my regret for things undone, people underconnected with, and... just rambling now.

The point is that this weekend made world history and surpassed most, if not all, weekends in personal history. My strong love for GW ultimate and the friends from there continues to give me strength when we're together. But when we're apart my pride mixes with sadness at the separation between us.

I believe I saw Obama's silhouette last night (in his pimp limo) and the motorcade of Joe Biden, both times only a few yards away. I'm looking forward to developing the pictures and framing some of the weekend's memorobilia. 

Conscious Hip Hop

Was leafing through some progressive blogs earlier today, and this entry at 2xconsciousness.blogspot.com is probably the most provocative while maintaining an artful feel.

As much as I talk about being progressive and against isms (anti-racist, anti-sexist, et al), I don't have a regular habit of reading progressive news, blogs, etc.

So I followed through on an invitation to Tim Wise's discussion and book signing last night. Charis Books, Atlanta's Feminist Bookstore, hosted the white anti-racist activist, thinker and author.

Bought the guy's book, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama and had it signed. That and Agamemnon are the two things I'm working on reading right now.

And here's a picture from the packed bookstore last night

Sayin Somethin Significant

I would like to use as a subject from which to preach this morning: "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution." The text for the morning is found in the book of Revelation. There are two passages that I would like to quote, in the sixteenth chapter of that book: "Behold, I make all things new; former things are passed away."

On March 31, 1968, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr visited Washington, DC to spoke these words at the famous National Cathedral.

The first thing that strikes me about the above introduction is the similarity between the words revolution and revelation. Using this history of the latin revolvere and this etymology of the latin revelare, we understand that revolution means more re-birth or renewal and revelation denotes more disclosure and revealing. For Dr King, just like today's pronunciation, the two were intertwined.

Dr King is quite up front in "Remaining Awake" about the triple evils of his day:

• poverty
• racism
• militarism

And he talks about the challenges for people of good conscience in facing those threats. Mainly, time is on the side of the oppressor. And a narrow worldview will always limit the possibilities of an international brotherhood of the human race.

Failing to develop new attitudes and mental responses is a symptom of sleeping through a revolution. With poor people from across America, Dr King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planned to "call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible [i.e. poverty, the poor] visible."

In addition to making demands of the government, Dr King's campaign was carrying out strategic boycotts of products and companies across the south: for failure to hire Black workers, invest in Black communities, and offer the dignity that humans deserve.

Before ending this eloquent and direct sermon, Dr King reminded us that standing against war was not popular. The media, along with people within the civil rights movement, lobbied Dr King to silence his opposition to the War in Vietnam. But Dr King did not seek the consensus. From his days in the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr King and the people there aimed to move the consensus.

Though his positions were not always expedient, they came from his conscience. Dr King was fatally shot only five days after this 'Remaining Awake' speech, giving his words, spoken in the nation's capitol, even more weight.

In his truly anti-war speech, Dr King noted that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar....it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." This, indeed, is a revolution worth remaining awake for.

For Writing's Sake

The world celebrated Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday (most people had to cause the government told them to). The Wednesday before this past was his real birthday. But you wouldn't know that from reading this blog; so I'm as guilty as anyone of letting the day go by without the pomp and rapture that should accompany the memorialization of such a great dude.

What I did do this past weekend was play in a beach ultimate frisbee tournament. Lei-Out is a top 5 beach tournament in the world these days, with hundreds of players, three days of games, and gorgeous weather for a winter event.

Quick Nuts 08 =====>>>>>

Two Hippos (Matt and Adam) and a Hellion came to town (read: the hood) Friday night and we carpooled to Santa Monica Saturday morning. Got a hotel room for Saturday and Sunday nights... right near da beeeach.

Quick Nuts did pretty well, overachieving the first day and underachieving the next two but having fun the whole time. The party was rocking. Saw some old friends from Long Beach, Swat, NorCal, and more.

Wish I could have been a part of the Gdub Ultimate Alumni Weekend back east; but traversing the continent wasn't in the cards for every west-coaster. So the group of us (plus Mickey, holla!) did some partyin' in our new home state.

To add a meaningful note, and close out this post, I'll just say that I appreciated Downtown Brown's DJ at the fields, especially on Sunday. We heard Malcolm X and Dr King speaking - including the full 'I Have a Dream' speech. That's one of the first times I can remember ultimate players including in their time together (their tournament time, no less) something to do with social justice and the race/class problem we have in America.

(I was trying to use irony there in the 'pomp' part of my 'memorialize Dr King' statement 1st paragraph)

Are Diverse Communities Disfunctional Communities?

Robert Putnam is a social scientist, a pioneer of the word "social capital" which drives my work and many others in the world of "community engagement". Social capital, as probably most of you civic minded folk know, is the idea that people invest with things other than money. When you make an effort to make friends and learn about your surroundings you are investing social capital. Part of what I do is run programs that seek to increase social capital among neighbors with the hope that their interactions will overcome the general malaise that inhibits low income/high diversity areas. That malaise is what Robert Putnam talks about in his new research which concludes that areas with high diversity produce people who lack trust, don't vote, don't volunteer and are just all-around lacking in the arena of civic engament. For the most part I want to take a "this is no news to me" attitude, but it is an intersting study nonetheless because he is taking a maxim that a lot of us hold true "diverse places are richer envormenments" and ripping it apart.

Here is a summary of his thesis that doesn't really do much to advance any findings,

but here he is "On Point" with Pat Buchanan and another professor.

ps. How awesome is the "On Point" theme music? It sounds like a DJ Shadow mix. And their program music is the band Zero 7 from the Garden State soundtrack, but who I had never heard from before randomly burning their cd off a friends computer in Ecuador.