from flowers to BP and back again

There is a bug in the machine.

According to A People's History of American Empire, by Howard Zinn, British Petroleum was established after the CIA and British government orchestrated a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh in Iran in 1951 for nationalizing Iran's oil. In his statement, Mossadegh said, "My only crime is that I nationalized Iran's oil and removed the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire on earth." Immediately following the coup, the Anglo-Iranian oil company was renamed British Petroleum. U.S. Oil got 40% cut.

Is this what civic participation looks like?

I've been thinking a lot about how, back in 2003 (and admittedly I was younger then), when there was something going on (WTO, the Iraq & Afghanistan wars beginning, Mumia's continued incarceration, globalization, evictions, Care Not Cash), me and my friends would sit down and think about what we could do to contribute to whatever protests were planned in a way that felt meaningful and relevant (and creative and fun). Mostly, it involved dressing up in costumes and coming up with stupid puns (think: Bunnies Against War Money), but still, it was a kind of civic participation, however limited in its effectiveness.

Fast forward 8-10 years and I slog away doing meaningful, political, and sometimes incredibly frustrating public health work within The System 12 hours a day (including the commute), 5 days a week. At the end of the day watch Rachel Maddow on her eponymous show and Jon Stewart on The Daily Show to see what latest tragedy has struck this ridiculous, precious world. I then get severely depressed (the earthquake and its aftermath in Haiti, the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill) or agitated (the AZ racial profiling law) and then go to bed. As I lie thinking, I have some insight about what's missing from the discourse and think, I should blog about that. But by the time I can really think a matter through enough to have something worthwhile to say about it, the moment has passed and the new headline has taken my attention and that of everyone else.

It used to be, when I was 20 and wrote a zine, it would take me 6 months on average to take a piece of writing from its idea stage to fruition; sometimes it took longer - two years, five years. Now, if I let a few days or weeks pass while I formulate my ideas, the writing no longer feels fresh and I just let it go unposted. I know this comes up a lot in the incessant postmortems on journalism - how can you do a good job investigating a story when, in the twitter age, you're expected to break a story seconds before someone else? My similar question about civic engagement is, now that we get so much of our information online, is it enough that I come home and take the time to write down and share what I am thinking in this forum?

I thought about this the other day when one of my friends said she had spent the morning writing a rant about gentrification on Facebook. I didn't read it, but I can imagine what it probably said. It used to be we made stencils of our discontent and spray-painted them in restaurant doorways with messages like COLONIZER FOOD and YUCK. But now, even that feels hackneyed, as do all conversations about how quickly the [insert historically black/Latino] neighborhood (the Mission, Bed-Sty, Oakland, Hunter's Point) is changing, how it just isn't the same anymore since the yuppies came in, their entryway paved by us artists and queers.

In a weird way I feel like this complacency is as much a product of age as it is a combination of Bush winning a second election (I realize this was six years ago, but it was a breaking point after which I no longer had the energy to fight) and Obama's historic election. With a black man in office we are to believe that all is solved, or at least that we can breathe again -- and we can, to some degree. But it is not enough; voting is not enough. No amount of email petitions -- against the AZ law or any other issue du jour -- will replace actual civic engagement, where we get together and think about an issue and what we want to do about it. (Particularly since email petitions are more often a means of fundraising than they are a tool for affecting change. My experience has been that crying, white, soccer moms -- or anyone with a compelling personal story-- get more traction in a Congressional hearing than do a thousand signatures to a written or electronic petition.)

Since I no longer have the energy for protesting, maybe my role is to take care of my health and to take the six weeks or six months I need to think something through before I write about it here. Because if anything is important in this short-attention-span age, it is to learn our history (read: Howard Zinn's excellent illustrated comic book A People's History of American Empire) and dig deeply towards a place of better understanding our individual and collective truths.

Images of Spring

i am obsessed with this old man who walks with a mug of coffee in one hand and his princess of a chihuahua on a leash in the other each morning to the Glen Park BART station to get his morning paper. i had been wanting to take a picture of this flower for days and was lucky enough that the old man walked by just as i was taking the picture so you can see the little dog in the distance on the left. she raises her feet with each step and looks about nervously but is so devoted to him. it's beautiful. and he could get his paper delivered, but he doesn't. he takes her for a walk and gets his paper just to take in the morning scene, or so i imagine when i narrate his life as i walk behind him everyday.

this flower reminds me of this article by Nancy Kreiger called "Epidemiology and the web of causation: has anyone seen the spider?". It talks about old conceptions of disease causation as lacking an agent - African-Americans have higher rates of blood pressure but, she says, quoting Charlotte's Web, "where's the spider?" - as in - who is creating the social conditions that create this higher blood pressure? who is invested in and benefits from the structural racism that causes this higher blood pressure? surely, it is not just a matter of what she calls biomedical individualism, of people making poor food choices. so she proposes a model that looks a lot like the shape of this flower as a way of thinking about how problems have root causes that branch out and cause other problems, until finally you can't see from where a thing once came. it struck a chord in me many years ago when i first read it (thanks to my friend and mentor Lisa Moore at SF State) and reinforced my commitment to the upstream orientation of public health: rather than pulling people out of the river, let's go upstream and see who is pushing them in...

Spring inspirations from the world of pop culture

Quote of the day from today's NYT: Eric Landan, president of Rick's Cabaret International, which runs 10 strip clubs: "Our clubs are set up with the same decorations and customer service as any major steakhouse." His point was that strip clubs are not a big deal (true) and that they're where businessmen have long done their business (also true). What strikes me is the implicit parallel between strip clubs and steakhouses. It's almost like a set up for a feminist joke about women being treated like pieces of meat a' la The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory, by Carol J. Adams. I confess to never having read the book. We had it lying around my vegan all-girl punk house many years ago but the book's title seemed to say it all. The title, and all those all-girl punk songs we sang along to by Team Dresch and Sleater Kinney and Spitboy back in the day.

Speaking of girl power, I've been meaning to show this clip from the musical Wicked, which my roommate and I went to see in February. The song is called Defying Gravity and it's kind of reminiscent of all those riot girl songs of yesteryear. Here is a snapshot of the lyrics:
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!
It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

Also oddly moving (and, alternatively, hilarious) is Alicia Keys singing "New York" with Stephen Colbert rapping about his asthma and life in the upper-middle class!:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down
www.colbertnation.com

Faves films of late: The Runaways (serious lez action with Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie and Kirsten Stewart as Joan Jett); The Hurt Locker (more serious fare - i don't often watch war movies but this one seemed to show the alienation and adrenaline rush that comes with living amongst so much danger and violence); Up in the Air (the moral: capitalist alienation-not love-will tear us apart unless we hold onto each other); The Princess and the Frog, (yes, it was refreshing seeing a working class, black princess in a Disney musical/cartoon/movie for once!!!)

Actual news (the passage of landmark health care reform! the web of disease causation! Tom Freiden's pyramid of public health interventions! the lifting of the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange! the U.S. finally, kind of standing up to Netanyahu on building in E. Jerusalem!) next time.

love and loss and Haiti

I didn't know him, really, but a friend in my community, Flo McGarrell, was killed in the earthquake in Haiti and it is sad. And another friend had a terrible death in her family this week. And the loss and devastation in Haiti is just unimaginable.

If you want to give money to help support those in Haiti, give it to Partners in Health. They've been working in Haiti for more than 20 years, training Haitian doctors to deliver HIV and tuberculosis care. They are coordinating care at the main public hospital alongside the Haitian Ministry of Health and triaging people for surgery. In addition to the pictures, I was particularly moved by their statement, along with six other human rights organizations, urging international aid groups to respect the human rights, dignity, and sovereignty of the Haitian people during the aid process. Already, just like with Katrina, there are reports of looting in the New York Times when people are just searching for food, and of U.S. military planes being given priority for landing while Medicine Sans Frontiers doctors and medical supplies being diverted from the Port-au-Prince airport to Santo Domingo. WTF!!!

In memory of Flo, who was doing an artist residency in Haiti, you should checkout his awesome website: http://www.gowithflo.net/. He worked as the art director for an incredible movie, Maggots and Men. It's a beautiful, stunning re-telling of the story of the Kronstdat sailors' uprising in Russia in 1921, told with an all genderqueer, mostly male transgendered cast.

There is a lot of love and beauty and tragedy and death and loss in the world. It is nothing new, really, and yet, with each milagro, with each loss, we are struck as if by freezing water, time slows and our hearts gush open, as if life were hitting the refresh button, again and again. And we mourn the loss. And we hold on tight to those who we love and who are around us. And we are reminded of so many other losses, so many other premature deaths. And we worry that those who are close to us will soon die too. And we are reminded, once again, to be grateful.

Boundaries

The theme for this 34th year will be boundaries: knowing when to set and hold them; knowing when to let them down. (Admittedly, it's been a theme before.) When I used to co-teach a women's self defense class, we found that self defense was less about how to physically fend off an attacker than it was about how to prevent someone from encroaching on your space to begin with. So much of self defense is prevention, recognizing the signs of discomfort in your throat and in your chest when you don't feel safe or respected. Recognizing what you want, asking for it, standing your ground. (Thanks to my lesbian self defense teacher Judith Fein, author of How to Fight Back and Win, for this insight.) And, also, remembering to be open to vulnerability. Remembering not to be so fiercely independent as to cease letting anyone else in. Ah, balance.

In preparation for a recent trip to Israel for my brother's wedding, I was looking online for a downloadable map of Jerusalem, where I would be staying, and was struck by what the maps I found did and didn't say, by the inherently political nature of mapping supposedly physical boundaries, which are really just superimposed by the people who get to draw them. I was trepidatious to go at first. I'd been avoiding returning there for the past 15 years after having learned the other side of the story of the creation of the State of Israel as an adult - the massacre at Deir Yassin; the forced dislocation of Palestinian people whose homes were bulldozed before they could move back in - which was very much in opposition to what I'd learned at Zionist summer camp as a child, where we made Israel out of ice cream and were told that Israel was "a land without people for a people without land." And then, before going, I read The Invention of the Jewish People, a book by Shlomo Sand. Its basic thesis is that, contrary to popular mythology, there was never a mass exodus of Jews from Palestine after the Bar Kohkba Revolt in the 2nd Century CE; Jews left gradually and mixed with other groups wherever they lived. And, most of today's Ashkenazic Jews are not direct descendants of the Jews of Ancient Israel, but descendants of people who converted to Judaism in 10th century Russia. Jews do not make up an ethnicity, but a religious group, and so are not an exiled people returning to their land, as is claimed in the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

And, the inspiring part where this all leads: if Israel wants to be a real democracy it needs to give equal rights and citizenship to everyone who lives there, not just to Jews. His ideas are basic, and, according to reviews, a conglomeration of other scholars' ideas, some of which are verified and some of which are questioned. What's inspiring about the book is that an Israeli historian is trying to throw a wrench into the Zionist mythology that justifies oppressing and excluding Palestinian people, some of whom, the book claims, may have converted from Judaism to Islam in the 8th Century. Maybe if you're not Jewish this doesn't mean as much to you, but for me it was an enormous eye-opener. I'd always wondered why, if I was descended from the people of Israel/Palestine, my skin wasn't darker and my grandparents came from Russia. Why did we eat borscht and kasha instead of falafel and hummus? This book explained some of that. And so, in celebration of my 34th birthday, we feasted on the kinds of blintzes, latkes, split pea soup, borscht, and piroghis you'd find at B & H dairy on 2nd Avenue & St. Marks in Manhattan, which are the foods I associated with home, whatever that means.

As for the trip to Israel, it ended up being all right. Druze, Jewish, and Palestinian Christian and Muslim religious leaders all participated in and blessed the wedding for my brother, who does interfaith peace work in Jerusalem; it was incredible.

From Jerusalem

Ibrahim im Ahmad Abu El-Hawai, Sheikh Bukhari, Eliyahu McLean, and Orr Dalal

I felt like I could be there for my brother without having to buy into all of this stuff about Israel. People, buried on the Mount of Olives outside the Eastern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, waiting from the grave for the Messiah to come:

From Jerusalem

From Jerusalem

Jewish-only roads leading to West Bank settlements (in the distance, center right):

From Jerusalem

It may be for some, but it doesn't have to be for me.

Noticias del Dia de Los Muertos

So much to keep track of these days. It's all I can do to keep it together. This Day of the Dead reminds me to honor my dear, departed friends by living. So, before the political gossip, let's talk about Self-Care. Every year, fall comes and turns my world upside-down, and every year I vow to be more grounded come the next fall... For whatever it's worth I do feel like I'm making some progress in that regard. This week, I read an interview with an old musician (whose name of course I can't remember). His advice: "Take care of yourself!"

What does self-care look like?
* Going for walks in the morning, or at lunchtime around the E. Bay. Went for a walk today around the new weird gated campus at my new office. Will need to do some more exploring in these coming weeks and days...
* Cooking at home as much as possible. Thanks, Erock, for the hippie taco inspiration, which lives on. (Recipe is simple, cook onions, garlic, kale, corn, cumin, add beans, heat tortillas, and serve!)

* Steering clear of sugar, wheat, flour (except corn), dairy, and other unprocessed foods (and of course meat).

* Talking, writing, creating, lesbian processing, maybe watching Glee or Rachel Maddow!

Okay, and speaking of Rachel Maddow, there was a great moment when she told this creepy lobbyist guy that he was a parasite on the American people!!! A true highlight:

Other highlights: Governor Schwarzenneger's not so coded

veto letter to Tom Ammiano (hint: the first word started with an "f", the second word started with a "you.") Well, Assemblyman Ammiano did tell the Guv to "kiss my gay ass" after showing up at a gay fundraiser when he'd oh-so-cavalierly vetoed the *entire* state HIV prevention budget.

And, after all of our trepidation about the prospects of voting for Gavin Newsom for Governor of California, he has dropped out of the race! If only Sarah Palin would do the same before 2012. Otherwise, Nurse Palin will reign supreme, as illustrated by my fabulously gay neighbors down on Arlington St.:

In the meantime, here are some pics from Mission St. on Halloween to put everything into perspective: