Lucky White Girl

"Anyone who escapes or tries to leave without authorization will go to jail"

If that doesn't sound pretty much like slavery I don't know what does!  That's a quote from a really interesting This American Life expose of what happened to some guestworkers from India who came to work for a company in the U.S.  Workers beware!  Give it a listen.

"A melancholy that's a first cousin to loneliness"

Sometimes you run across something so well-written it makes you really appreciate the art of writing.  I don't know if it's because it's the holidays and I have time to notice or if it's the subject matter and my desire to learn more about my new city or if it's the author's tendency to, like me, be fascinated both the differences and the connections between people in this highly disparate world. 

Whatever it is, this article made me think the author wields language like a marionette.  You don't see that very often in a mainstream newspaper.  This is from the Washington Post Magazine.  It's about Pennsylvania Ave, one of the few streets I know so far because it's not too far from where I live.  It's an odd street, as they say, easy to get lost on.  The author describes it as emblematic of something uniquely "American":

It feels accidental, with its random grandeur, ironies and banality. Sometimes there's a melancholy that's a first cousin to loneliness, which is one of the conditions of being an American. It seems to harbor an on-going scheme for self-improvement, another American condition.

The Southeast end is the sort of America that tourists come from. The Northwest end is where tourists go to. One avenue, many paradoxes, many echoes.

(I'm never sure what to think when people talk about "Americans" or the "American condition"... Is there such a thing?  Do we have an "American condition"?  I know it's the warm fuzzy thing to say yes, that despite our differences and inequalities, there is something fundamental that we all share.  But every time I try to pin it down it seems it cannot be separated from what anyone anywhere in the world would also have experienced during their time on this planet.  Maybe that's true, but still, living in the world's only remaining super power has to have some kind of effect on those humans lucky (or unlucky depending on your point of view) to be born in it don't you think?   hmmm....)

Anyway, it was just a particularly nice piece --e.g. "a melancholy that's a first cousin to loneliness"!  I never would've written that such a phrase!  Just thought I'd share it with you language lovers out there.

Now a bit of humor to lighten things up

those last two posts were pretty heavy so...

If FOX News existed throughout history...

Christmas 2007

(there's a video here in case you can't see it.  Click below)

Maybe next year things'll be different...

What makes me mad

Funeral held for girl denied transplant by insurance company.

"A leukemia patient, 17-year-old Nataline had been in intensive care at UCLA Medical Center for about three weeks after suffering complications following a successful bone marrow transplant Nov. 21, according to relatives. She was covered under the policy of her mother, a real estate agent.

UCLA doctors put her on a list for a liver transplant on Dec. 6 and a liver became available four days later, the family said. Her doctors told Cigna in a letter that patients in similar situations have a 65% chance of living six months if they receive a liver transplant.

But the transplant was not performed because Cigna deemed it experimental in Nataline's case and refused to pay for it....

She died last week.

The 21st century Christmas may be just what we needed

Somewhere along the line I got the idea that if one were a Christian, then Christmas should be (or could be) a profound spiritual experience --the highlight of one's spiritual life.  Sorta like going to Mecca for Muslims. 

Most Christians think that Christmas is the biggest/most important holiday of the year except for Catholics who believe that the most important day is Easter (the thinking being that while it's a big deal to be born, it's a much bigger deal to raise yourself from the dead).  But I was raised Baptist and, for us, Christmas reigned supreme, so really it's no wonder that my upbringing and every Hollywood Christmas movie ever made make me yearn for an annual yuletide divine revelation that will rejuvenate my spirituality and connect me with the rest of the human race.   I expect to be reminded of the fragility of human existence and the profundity of the human soul. 

Needless to say Christmas these days rarely avoids achieving epic proportions of disappointment for me.  I should have learned this by now: Such intense spiritual experiences come along only maybe once or twice in a lifetime and of course they don't necessarily have to be connected to Christmas.  The average US Christian is much more likely to experience Christmas as a crash course in self-improvement led by an invisible slightly sadistic personal trainer with a sick sense of humor.  In only one weekend you will learn how to deal with an incongruous mix of human beings who wouldn't be caught dead in the same room together if they were not related.  At best it's an exercise in diplomacy at worst, a reminder of how much your sorry ass is lacking in some of the nobler human virtues such as tolerance, patience and magnanimity.

Is this what it's all about?  Is this the true meaning of Christmas?  Maybe in an age of globalization where the local and the global are so interconnected and we all interact with so many different people in so many different places with so many different backgrounds and ideas and cultures and languages and belief systems... maybe this is exactly the kind of Christmas we need.  Forget all that about unity with God crap.  Christmas is about learning how not to kill each other.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Immigrants. Identity. Illegal. Invasion.

Look at this map. Isn't it cool?  It's so simple on the surface: just a map of the Lakota Nation (see this post from the unapologetic Mexican).  But the more I look at it in the context of the current climate/controversies involving immigration in this country I think it raises all sorts of good and necessary complications around ideas of nations and borders and the interactions between humans across those imaginary lines. 

When you look at this map and I say "immigrants" who/what comes to mind?

What if I say "border security" --what does that make you think of looking at this map?

"Law and Order"?  "Illegal"?

"Invasion"?

These are words the anti-migrant crowd (e.g. Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan etc.) use in abundance when the subject is the US Mexico border and the desperately poor people who cross it looking for a better life.

History gives so much perspective on contemporary issues.  I'll give a little anecdote: I'm home visiting my folks for the holidays and my mom, as usual, says something to the effect of "I don't mind immigrants; I just wish they would learn English!" and it sounds reasonable but she says it with such anger that I know there's something else going on there under the surface.  It's not just about language --not really.  Because my little 70 year old white mother never has to worry about someone not speaking English to her.  She doesn't know many non-English speaking people.  My group of bilingual, multicultural friends is way more diverse than hers and I can't think of any friends of mine who don't speak English (even those in South America)!  So there's got to be something else going on there.

Over dinner I mention that my friend Paul recently came to visit.  Paul's parents are from Belguim and he was born in Argentina and raised in Fort Lauderdale.  He speaks English and French.  My mom was curious as to why he doesn't speak English and Spanish if he was born in Argentina.  I explained: His parents --like a lot of Europeans-- went to South America during and after the second World War.  And like a lot of immigrant groups when they got there they hung out with other Belgians and didn't learn much Spanish.  Sound familiar? I asked her. 

It's hard to learn another language --a fact never less understood than by those who have never tried to do so (my mother would fall into that category).   And it's freakin' hard to try to live and work in a country where you don't speak the language.  I know from personal experience that it's utterly exhausting.  It took every ounce of energy I had when I first got to Colombia to even to do the simplest of tasks (take the bus; buy groceries; have a vague idea of what's going on around in my immediate surroundings).  Life depends on language and when you're in a foreign world; you can't learn the new language fast enough.  But it takes time.  Especially if you're an adult.  And especially if you are not in the foreign land out of choice but by economic necessity the temptation to retreat into the familiar sounds and cadences of your mother tongue can be irresistible.   Heaven forbid, we get tired!

This is all the same thing.  No matter where we are now, no matter where we go in the future: we've been there before.  One day we are the migrants and the next someone else is.  Today we have plenty, tomorrow it's us asking for help/another chance/a better chance.  No matter how hard we try the world just refuses to congeal itself into a frozen unchanging mass.  Immigrants come and immigrants go and the flow of people and languages and cultures continues, messing up those little imaginary lines and convenient boxes.

Thank goodness for that.

'Tis the season... for exploitation?

"Between December and May, Florida produces virtually the entire US crop of field-grown fresh tomatoes. Fruit picked here in the winter months ends up on the shelves of supermarkets and is also served in the country's top restaurants and in tens of thousands of fast-food outlets.

But conditions in the state's fruit-picking industry range from straightforward exploitation to forced labour. Tens of thousands of men, women and children - excluded from the protection of America's employment laws and banned from unionising - work their fingers to the bone for rates of pay which have hardly budged in 30 years. [from The Unapologetic Mexican but originally from:Slave labour that shames America; Migrant workers chained beaten and forced into debt, exposing the human cost of producing cheap food]

The Story of Stuff: GREAT movie for this time of year!

The Story of Stuff a really smart woman explains the way the capitalist system works: externalize the costs; internalize the profits. 

I like the end where she says there are many points of intervention in this toxic system and people are working at many junctures: environmental, labor, human rights... etc.  There are many points of resistance in the matrix.

What's going on in Bolivia?

Does anyone know???  Four wealthy natural-gas-producing regions have declared themselves autonomous of Morales' government.... yikes!  Keeping a wary eye on the events down there..

What one person can do

The US changed its mind!  In an overtime session of the US climate change conference we've finally agreed to a compromise we said just moments before we'd never agree to.  And the most interesting part of the story, I think, is this:  Just after the US delegate announced our rejection of the proposal a short speech by a delegate from Papua New Guinea challenged the US to "lead, follow or get out of the way"

Just five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky [the US delegate] took to the floor again to announce the United States was willing to accept the arrangement." (from the CNN story)

Now y'all know I'm not normally one to write about environmental issues in anything but the most general terms so I don't know if the compromise was really all that big of a victory (because I understand that it still did not include specific benchmarks about things like carbon emissions) but it's a step closer than they were and more than any reasonable person could probably expect from the current administration. 

Duh.

Study shows thinking makes you smart!

Emphasis on "Happy": Consequences of economic insecurity

Madeline Bunting had a column in The Guardian a few weeks ago about the economics of insecurity.  Security and insecurity is a favorite subject of mine because the concept is so pliable.  What is security?  It's a goal we're always striving for; it's been ever more prominent and elusive since 9/11 but rarely do we ask what it would mean, exactly, --what it would take-- for us to feel "secure"?  Are we talking about military superiority so overwhelming that no one would dare attack us physically?  Or do we mean food security: knowing we grow and produce enough food to feed ourselves?  What about social security: knowing that one's government provides safety nets for its population so that we don't all have to live at the mercy of fate?  Then of course there's economic security and that's the one Bunting talks about in her article.  Our current economic system is built on economic INsecurity, and overconsumption as a whole is "a mal-adaptive type of coping mechanism".  And what are the consequences of that (besides global warming and the general destruction of the planet)?

"there is a madness at the heart of this economic model with its terrible environmental costs. It's best illustrated by a graph used by the US psychologist Tim Kasser at a Whitehall seminar last week. One line, representing personal income, has soared over the past 40 years; the other line marks those who describe themselves as "very happy", and has remained the same. The gap between the two yawns ever wider. All this consumption is not necessary to our happiness....

The brilliance of this economic system built on insecurity is that it is self-reinforcing. The more insecure you are, the more materialistic; the more materialistic, the more insecure. As Kasser has shown, materialistic values (which are on the increase among teenagers on both sides of the Atlantic) make you more anxious, more vulnerable to depression and less cooperative. Studies show that people know what the real sources of lasting human fulfilment are - good relationships, self-acceptance, community feeling - but they face a formidable alliance of political and economic interests that have a vested interest in distracting them from that insight to ensure they work longer hours and spend more money.

The task we're faced with now is how to turn that equation around: go from a high-anxiety high-consumption mode of life to a low-anxiety low-consumption one.  A low-consumption economy would be "oriented towards facilitating the real sources of human fulfilment":

Hearteningly, we know it can be done - our parents and grandparents managed it in the second world war. This useful analogy, explored by Andrew Simms in his book Ecological Debt, demonstrates the critical role of government. In the early 1940s, a dramatic drop in household consumption was achieved - not by relying on the good intentions of individuals ... but by the government orchestrating a massive propaganda exercise combined with a rationing system and a luxury tax.

So, yes it's good to buy eco-friendly laundry detergent but to really make a change we need to act en masse.  That's why the UN's Climate Change Conference in Bali this week is so important and that's why a movement that relies on individual good intentions has never-- and will never-- change the world.  All the great progressive changes in society were based on communal action (sometimes sparked by a brave individual but eventually carried out communally).  In this age of globalization our community is now the whole world.  Some things just require a group effort.  As that famous presidential candidate once said, "it takes a village", eh?

Fighting xenophobia

MigraMatters is a really excellent blog by the way.

I stole the image up there to the left (under "Credo") from them.

Soon to be under construction

Starting January, this blog is officially three years old (I thought it was older actually...)

I think it's time for a change:  I'm giving up TypePad.  Not because they aren't an absolutely wonderful online content management system (they are and I love them!) but just because I want to try something new. 

I want to stretch my web design skills and show my boss what a cool website we could have if only he'd let me stop using 1990s technology and move into the 21st century!  He has me working with their ancient tech guy who --don't laugh, it's rude-- thinks animated gifs are the coolest thing since sliced bread! (I said don't laugh!)  He and I sorta clash a bit.  I find him patronizing and outdated.  I'm sure he sees me as this cocky youngster who thinks she knows everything.  ("Cocky" I can't argue with but "youngster" is entirely a misperception!).  And anyway I don't know everything.  I just know how to google everything!  lol...  And in the end that's all that matters isn't it? ;-)

Okay so anyway, I've decided to use Joomla.  It's an open-source content management system.  (Ye Olde Tech Guy uses Everything Microsoft).  After I find a good host, I'll be moving things around a lot but probably won't point the domain name there until it's halfway decent looking.  If anyone wants to offer advice/support, it would be greatly appreciated!  Unless you're pimping the latest Microsoft product.

"Playing" Race

Wow, there is a really interesting story this morning about a new play that deals with the complicated questions of race and racial identity and what it means for us to play these race-based roles in everyday life.  It's called Yellowface by David Hwang.  This NYTimes review doesn't nearly do it justice, but man, I'd love to see this!  If anyone knows anything about it, please let me know!

"Green" nuclear power?

I found this on a list of the world's 7 creepiest places.  At a time when nuclear power is being presented by many as a "green" alternative to fossil fuels, we'd do well to remember what happened in Chernobyl to make it so infamous. 

Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine

Walk through the abandoned town of Pripyat in the Ukraine, and you'll find a large-scale crime scene abandoned in a hurry: A nursery full of children's shoes, and apartment complexes with the morning newspaper, dated April 28, 1986, open on the breakfast table. Two days before, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, minutes away, melted down, but it took 48 hours for the authorities to alert locals and clear them out of the world's biggest nuclear disaster site. Now that radiation levels are safe for short-term exposure, Chernobyl's nuclear complex has become an unlikely tourist attraction since opening to visitors in 2002. The power complex is at the center of the 20-mile-radius "Exclusion Zone," a regrown area of forests now populated by wolves and bears. Reactor #4 is the star of this sad show, today sheathed in a concrete and lead sarcophagus 200 feet high.