What puzzles me

Pictured below is a herd of sheep and goats passing through an olive orchard situated between the triangle of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Givat Shaul (a settlement). Its also the spot where I (stopped because of sirens and) saw the air stream of rockets seconds or minutes after they flew: 

Right now, I'm resting in the comfort of my parents home. I'm very thankful for this respite and refuge. But the way of the world right now saddens me, and I'm puzzled by the things that got us here. In particular, the acts of war taking place in and around Gaza and Israel worries me.

Having spent most of this year in the Middle East, I'm feeling extra sensitive to the goings-on there right now. In particular, I'm sensitive to the different parties resorting war machines and killing people.

Two weeks ago, during my trips around Israel and the West Bank saying goodbye to friends, I saw the tanks and bulldozers headed south towards Gaza. Friends were called up from reserve to report to duty. I saw the air stream of rockets fired only minutes before; I saw the rockets themselves, and the Iron Dome; I felt the boom of rockets not intercepted; I watched the momentum to where we are now (two weeks into a war).

The transformation that is not visible is what's gone on in the minds of so-called leadership. What I imagine is that, somewhere between birth and now, many of the people operating the war machines on all sides came to justify the taking of a human life. So, my question is: at what point does someone decide they can kill someone else? Is there an age, or an experience?

I hate that leadership is willing to kill people - sacrificing lives on both ends of the barrel. And yet the implicit understanding today is that national leadership prioritizes their citizens above those of others. I don't understand why (citizens and) leaders cannot value all lives equally. Why can we not see what Kofi Annan sees: that "what begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends up with a calamity for all nations."

What do y'all think?

Some news today

Don't know how to start this post except to take a deep breath and commence typing.

Andrew Breitbart, a commentator for the Washington Times, is on my sh*t list for two reasons. More broadly, I'm feelin angry and upset about shit going down in Washington (and all over). First, Breitbart blames my U.S. representative for being called the n-word last weekend. Speaking of John Lewis and Jim Clyburn, after they were harassed between their office and the capitol, Breitbart says "they should be the objects of ridicule [for walking through the crowd]."

Secondly, Breitbart has now issued a reward offer of $10,000 for video of the harassment Congressman Lewis and colleagues experienced. If anyone has video that the N-word was thrown at the Congressmen, Breitbart will cut a check to the UNCF. By the way, countless news sources have reported the N-word was yelled. Raising his profile seems to be Breitbart's intent here.

By now, there are critics of members of congress even responding to requests for comment. Its all of a sudden a partisan act when one states the facts of an incident... I'm upset this is all so fucking hateful - or is it anymore hateful than usual, only now just coming to the surface?

Good for the creative loafing for having a sense of humor - at least humor is somewhat constructive, as opposed to the Tea Party who have done little except tear people down. So what can Congressman Lewis do - or anyone else concerned about the issue of health insurance reform but also decency and positivity? Respond to the demand for video? Ignore it and leave the hateful activists to roast in the light of day?

Malicious Blogs

Here's a short list of memories of Salisbury, Maryland, and why I don't actually hate the place but know people who do (picture above is from alumni weekend 07 - snausy throwing against shed with jen, carlone, bach, and willis admiring the layering): 

1. Freshman year, lunch with Dirty and a couple other seniors between Saturday games. Ate at a southern-style place and got the worst kind of food. The fattening kind that takes a long time to cook so you have to eat quickly and get back to the fields with a heavy stomach.
   
2. Freshman year, tournament party has a beer garden and lots of alcohol. Snausages drinks Southern Comfort like its an IV. At the hotel, he takes two steps away from the 30-person-fitting team bus and throws up all over the place, including on my pants, sandals and exposed toes. 
3. Sophomore year, in the wind against Delaware. Handling with Ed and Jeff Rakitt: going back and forth in the zone, saying after each throw 'Nice throw, Ed!'
4. Junior year, tournament party: Usher's Yeah song comes on and the dance floor explodes. This was a big night for the Wang. And possibly the last time I saw Old Man dance. Faust was kicked out of this party, I believe, for trying to sneak underage players in.
5. Senior year, beating Maryland. 
6. Senior year, back in DC partying with women's team, who also finished first at sectionals that day... drinking from the colonial cup and playing provocative beer pong. 
7. Alumni years, everyone shit-talking Salisbury, especially Linc. And House. And Giga. And now Kyle C. And Snaus. And the women's team. And others. 

Please post in the comments below why we collectively hate Salisbury...

Ahh!

Mid-February events

• Friday the 13th
• Valentine's Day
• President's Day
• birthdays, etc

With the number of things going on in the middle of February, I had a feeling that this past weekend was gonna be amazing... in that kind of 'people are buzzing' sort of way. But instead, fun stuff to do (for a single person) was hard to come by. In short, I felt pretty Ahh! and Blah! this weekend.

After two days of watching TV - broken up only by a couple hours of disc sports each afternoon - I decided to spend Monday cleaning and reading. And what I was reading is sort of echoed in Kate's blog over at kawilson830.blogspot.com. 

Three Cups of Tea, written by the central figure of the book Greg Mortensen and his friend David Oliver Relin, is billed as 'one man's mission to promote peace... one school at a time.' And although I don't think Mortensen began his humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan with the inspiration of peacemaking, I do think his work has great diplomatic effects. 

And I'm proud that an American like Mortensen, originally a climber and only later a non-profit director, has put his whole life into his Central Asia Institute work. A couple weeks ago, Mortensen came through Atlanta on his speaking tour; just the other day, I believe, my sister saw him speak in New York. So he's getting the word out. And I'm happy to do the same.

The reason why I thought this was echoed in kawilson's blog is cause she talks about a pot of tea. And the American value placed on perpetual busy-ness, as opposed to relationship-building and patience. We grow up admiring people that never stop moving; people who think that doing something slow, or even slower, is as valuable as not doing anything at all. 

At about the midpoint in Three Cups of tea, the mayor of the first town Mortensen helps build a school in takes the American aside. Mortensen was at the time working people too hard and focused too much on finishing construction by a certain date. Since procuring all the materials and breaking ground, he had spent little time at understanding the people and processes involved. The mayor, Haji Ali, says to encourage Mortensen to ease up:

The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.”

Kate, you are in the sometimes fortunate and other times unfortunate position of having free time where no one is going to force you to either speed up or slow down. Whereas Mortensen had someone to counsel him at the appropriate pace of life, its really your issue to grapple with. I like seeing that you're concsious of the issue and that you're spending time with a wide variety of characters, including yourself and your pot of tea.

Lei Out (2006 I think) with kawilson. Sometimes ultimate is our pot of tea.

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.

What is It Good For?

For a country at war, no news is good news. The same is true for families in which there's a son, daughter, wife, husband, brother, sister at war. Unfortunately, for six more American families on Monday, heart-breaking news came.

This Press Association article cites a Multi-National Force director's statement and an Associated Press tally of American deaths. This year has been the deadliest year for Americans since Bush started the war in 2003; and we're only 10 full months in.

I wrote this blog post a few months ago about the war and have pretty much blocked the war out of my mind and conversation since. The problems for Iraq and for the U.S. presence in Iraq are only worsening.

My beefs with the President are intensifying. Not only has Bush moved pivotal positions and departments to the political right as well as ravaged crucial domestic programs, but he has kept up this lying, filthy, dead-end war. I support the troops as individuals but I refuse to support the war that our government has sent them to fight. For more info on how to support a member and members of the military objecting to the occupation of Iraq, visit http://www.thankyoult.org/.

-------breath--------

Quick story from my week:

On Monday night I felt for a moment that I was living in a neighborhood which may resemble Baghdad and other war-torn areas. I was washing dishes in the kitchen when I first hear a helicopter overhead. I think, 'nothing new; helicopters are always flying around this neighborhood, overstaying their welcome and the usual time it takes things to fly overhead.'

A few minutes later, when I leave the house and head for the bus (bowling night, up Vermont), the helicopter is still there. Its circling with its floodlight pointed at either the block south of me or a house in between my street and the next. The hum and chop of the helicopter keep up as the chopper flies in circles, keeping its lamp on basically the same spot at the end of my street.

And that's basically where I'm headed... a little frightening. But, my neighbors are acting like I imagine most people would act in places that have incidences of violence, harrassment, and chaos... they're going about their business. One guy is working on his car. A couple women are standing against the wall of the grocery store just chatting. I didn't see people running, hear anyone screaming, or feel the electricity some scary events generate locally.

Once I got to Broadway I look south and, sure enough, the copter's floodlight is focused on a spot a couple hundred yards away. A white Camry is stopped with all its doors open; and its surrounded by police cruisers, more of which arrive over the next few minutes.

I saw a few dudes sitting on the sidewalk, cuffed, leaning up against the wall of the 99 cent store I shop at. The whole scene is lit up by the bright lights from the cruisers and chopper. Likely, the chopper followed the car to where it was (if it were a chase, that would be the second chase to end in my neighborhood in the last week) and the cruiser cops pulled the accused out of the car and put them on the sidewalk. Traffic's partially stopped but pedestrians have barely noticed.

Phew...

I wonder how likely we are to see a peaceful 2008 (like that Facebook group I'm in).

Vegans and Terrorism

What is terrorism? "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion."

What is terror? "a violent or destructive act."

A 6-week old girl died recently because of her (and her parents') vegan diet. Depending on how you look at it, the incident as reported was:

1. a ratcheting up of the 'threat level' that ignorant pose to America.
2. an act of terror by the parents, for which their convictions of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty were justified.

Whether or not the parents knew about the damage a vegan diet could do to a baby, their decisions led to its death. They did something that terrorized and killed this Atlanta boy.

But to the extent that this story was blown up... I mean the New York Times published an op-ed on it... this is an act of the right wing's effort to terrorize the nation (read the media labels: liberal, poor, minorities).

Do you agree that the media plays a part in escalating our feelings of terror in our culture? How can we have a full conversation about nutrition when so few truly comprehensive mediums exist for communicating to people ecologically and nutritionally safe habits?