Things I've Seen

Obama in Grand Rapids

I didn't go.

At about 2:00 Josh picked me up in his NEW Lancer and we took a quick ride down to the Van Andel Arena - just a few blocks from Davenport University where we work - to check out the crowd. T-Shirt hawkers were stationed on one corner. Several hundred people were lined up in the mist and chill, waiting.

At about 4:30, I got a "check in" message on BrightKite from Brian saying he was at the Arena. I'd heard his wife had already been standing on line for awhile. Amanda headed down there just before 5 p.m.

I went home and checked WoodTV8 online for some live video before tuning in on TV.

John Edwards spoke first, throwing his support behind Obama, finally. Funny thing, I thought, that he praised Hillary Clinton for about the first three or so minutes before he got down to the business of endorsing his candidate.

Then Obama came on. Now I haven't followed him all that closely,  so I don't know if he veered from his usual stump speech or not. I do know that the crowd -  about 13,000 inside and lots of overflow listening  outside  - was wild about what was a really rousing, old-time democratic values speech.  My own  gut stirred to hear him  - and  I was moved to see the  diversity of the crowd.   I even thought to myself, wow, 40-some odd years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke like this to crowds in hope of uniting a nation to acknowledge simple, obvious rights for people of color. Now, here is a black man running for President.  And - wonder of all - he has a great chance of winning.

All week I've insisted that you couldn't pay me enough to stand in line to see a rock-star anybody - no matter how short or long the wait or what the weather. Josh said to me, "But this is historic - he could be the next President." But I didn't waver.

You know what? I should have gone.

Why Twitter is about more than telling you what I had for lunch

Cross posted from Coit Avenue

Stowe Boyd points to this article from USA Today’s Andrew Kantor on the subject of Twitter. I’m struck by Kantor’s willful ignorance of what’s at the core of this social presence app:

Twitter is a bad, bad thing — not just because of what it does, but because of what it says about all of us and our need to be connected. Twitter's whole existence is based on the premise that we aren't yet in touch with one another quite enough.

According to Twitter, you see, we should be in touch every second — every moment. This is madness … 

What is madness, I think, is Kantor's oversight of the fact that we already are all connected. It is the nature our world in which everything by design is connected to everything else. It is something our ancient ancestors instinctively knew – and instinctively acted upon, in order to live and continue the species. And, as we’ve gained in knowledge of the world that surrounds us, something we’ve sought after always to understand and express.

We’ve always looked for connection

Speech, songs, stories. Written language that begat books, letters. Printing that sparked the spread of ideas via books and newspapers. And with them the migration of people, both outward across the globe and inward to enclaves of villages, towns, cities. Widespread travel, telegraph, telephone, radio, television – a succession of means for making sense of our center, our connectedness. And then the internet, cellular phones, wireless communication – technology-enabled means for understanding the connections that are.

  Don’t you see it? We don't impact the flow that is the universe. These all are just our own small means for tapping it, trying to understand it, living in what already is and always has been. 

I’ve been watching a lot of old movies lately – those made in the 30s, 40s and 50s where making a long-distance call was worth a raised eyebrow, a second thought, even among those with means. Even I remember when long distance was reserved for Grandma, and only on a Sunday, when the rates were cheaper, and you hadn’t just seen her the weekend before.

  But what is long distance today? A rarer and rarer consideration as I call my friend who is 600 miles away at any time of the day or night. And I fully expect that soon it won’t matter if I’m using “anytime minutes” or not. It certainly shouldn’t. It’s a primitive, holdover construct from what’s fast becoming history. 

These are the people we live with

  Critics of connection enablers like Twitter seem short-sighted to me. Twitter is just one in a succession of acknowledgements of the connectedness of the universe and everything in it. Of the flow that creates and sustains us all. A claiming of our own existence within that flow.    

Overblown? Maybe, with regard to Twitter per se. But just ask yourself: What can you learn and know of the world and your fellow humans from even a short time spent with Twittervision (see how it’s evolving already)? That someone has too many choices for lunch (which is some kind of learning in itself)? Sure.  But you can also see there’s an ice storm raging in Northern  Europe. That it’s tomorrow in Australia. That someone in Italy, right now, is listening to an American rock song. That many many people speak in languages you don’t understand. That there is life beyond your street that you’ve otherwise had little glimpse of before now, that it’s always been there and it continues, whether you’re asleep, awake, indifferent.    

These are the people we live with on this earth, and what they do and think and feel has effects beyond you, and vice versa. Yes, these are early adopters, yes they’re technology-enabled themselves, while most of the world isn’t yet. But the implications are further reaching than we can probably imagine right now. And it’s only the smallest beginning.

 

 

Goodbye, Mr. Ford

People started to gather yesterday morning before 9:30, staking out their spots along Fulton St., where the funeral cortege for President Gerald R. Ford -- one of Grand Rapids' own --  was scheduled to pass sometime after 1 p.m. on its way to the funeral service at Grace Espiscopal Church in East Grand Rapids.

I work in Davenport University's Peter C. Cook Building on the corner of Fulton and Prospect, where our second-floor office windows overlook Fulton St. Our parking lots were barricaded, and only cars bearing employees and Boy Scouts in uniform were allowed in. Our building doors were locked as well, but bystanders were directed to the student Welcome Center in the building next door if they had "personal needs" to take care of.

I'd read in a Google news alert that Boy Scouts would be lining up along the processional route in front of the university, and as the morning wore on, hundreds of Scouts gathered. They hoisted flags -- American flags and those bearing the names and towns of their packs and troops -- up and down both sides of the street. Others came, too: Parents brought their children out, and the young ones played tag and ran around on the banked lawn of the Cook Building while the older ones stood, hands in pockets, talking in small groups.

Upstairs in our offices we tried to work, but we kept wandering over to the windows, looking down at the growing crowd. A television was on in the conference room and some watched streaming video on their computers, keeping tabs on the goings on so we wouldn't miss the cortege when it finally passed by.

Just before 1:00 I took my camera down and stood on the lawn with my coworkers. It was a beautiful warm-for-January day. Forty-some degrees and sunny.

Then, it must have been around 1:30, the police escort leading the procession came slowly past, headed east on Fulton, lights flashing. They were followed by a slow procession of shiny black vehicles bearing family members and dignitaries. Then the first hearse. And a few cars later, a second. An astonishing, respectful hush came over the crowd -- even the smallest children stopped their games and were quiet. Flags of all sizes fluttered in a light breeze. Spectators stood, some at attention, some with their hands over their hearts. And the hundreds of Scouts stood still, smartly saluting as the cars rolled slowly on.

After the last car passed and was well up the street, a quiet applause broke out, and some turned to go. But most -- especially the Scouts -- simply broke rank and resumed waiting as they had been. They'd repeat the entire scene again some two hours later when the cortege passed by again, this time headed west to the place where Mr. Ford would be laid to rest, on the grounds of his library and museum, overlooking the river in his home town, Grand Rapids.

 

It's Veteran's Day

The site CODE PINK Women for Peace reminds that Veteran's Day originally was established in part "to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations ..."

In their essay, "How to support our troops on Veteran's Day," coauthors Medea Benjamin and Gayle Brandeis suggest that we can champion our men and women in the service without supporting the war itself.

This November 11, as we honor the sacrifice and courage of our veterans, let us recognize that the best way to support our troops is to call for their swift exit from Iraq, to guarantee them the care they deserve when they return, and to make policy changes that will stop us from ever again rushing into a reckless, oil-hungry war.

$3.19.9

Filled up my little Ford Ranger's tank this morning for $45 -- well, I should say that 14.068 gallons almost filled it. Glad I'm not driving an SUV or a big truck these days.

Can't say we weren't warned on this one. And the heck of it is, since hundreds thousands of people are displaced or worse by Hurricane Katrina, it just doesn't seem right to complain ...

So what are you paying for gas in your neck of the woods? Don't be shy now -- leave a comment with the price and your city/state. It'll be interesting to see how different parts of the country are affected.

UPDATE: Just got this in email (Thanks, Vince!):

What's your footprint?

This quiz from earthday network calculates your ecological footprint -- the amount of space you take up on the planet. After I answered several ecologically skewed questions, the thing determined that it takes 16 acres to sustain me, which is less than the 24-acre average for people living in the U.S.

According to the quiz however, the available acreage per person on the planet is, um, 4.5. So if everyone lived like me we'd  need 3.5 planets to live on. (How's that for a guilt trip?) At the end of the quiz there's an oppportunity to "take action" and/or "donate."

Suckas

This has been all over the news, but here's a Michigan connection. Rep. Dudley Spade (D-Tipton) wants to introduce legislation to ban the weed-flavored "Pot Sucker" sold at Spencer Gifts.

Reality check, folks. These things can't actually taste good. They're a novelty, fer gawd's sake.

An "expert" I'm acquainted with confirms the flavor's bad and nobody's likely to mistake these suckers for the real thing. "There's three grades," he tells me: "'mersh' [short for commercial; I wonder how you'd spell that?] being the worst, middle, and chronic. Now if these tasted like chronic, that would be something," he says. "But they taste worse than mersh."

There you have it, Dudley. The sense of child advocacy is appreciated, but this is maybe not something we want to spend too many hard- earned legislative dollars on. The kids are all right.

--with a nod to Boing Boing for the Lenawee link

Red states, blue states

France's vote on the EU referendum shown as a red state/blue state thing.  Hmm, I'd have guessed a little more blue in Europe. Guess not ...

All things not being equal ...

The Equal Exchange Interfaith Coffee Program is a worker owned fair trade organization that supports small farmers in some of the poorest countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America:

In partnership with congregations Equal Exchange's Interfaith Coffee Program is a bridge between these communities and our own. By paying a fair price, working with democratic cooperatives, offering affordable credit and supporting sustainable agriculture, Equal Exchange helps farmers to build better lives for themselves and their families.

The Presbyterian Coffee Project began in 2001 and now has about 1,200 congregations participating by serving Equal Exchange coffee at various church gatherings and by hosting fund raisers.

For every case of coffee sold, Equal Exchange also donates to the Presbyterian Small Farmer fund, which also assists coffee farmers and their families.

I occasionally purchase coffee through this program at Westminster Presbyterian Church (I should always buy my coffee this way!) It is excellent coffee. And I paid just $5 for the 12 oz bag shown above. A really small contribution on my part.

The $5 reflects the wholesale price available through the Interfaith Program only. You can purchase at retail here. 

What's left?

Done been cut down ...

So it's a week since the election. I'm stunned, like almost everyone I know. It's like my coworker and friend said to me last Wednesday, "What's wrong with me? Am I that out of touch with what everyone else is thinking?" He says he's about a half-inch left of center -- nowhere near having far- or even middlin'-far left leanings. But he feels he lives in a totally different world than the rest of the country apparently feels it does. "How can this be?" he lamented. "And the thing is, I still think they're so wrong!"

I hear ya, friend. Even my 15-year-olds are wondering what happened. Why the "God, gays, and guns" rhetoric suddenly drowned out all else. The notion that people "voted their morals" is absurd almost beyond discussion. As if 1,000 young men and women dead in an ill-conceived war is beyond reproach. As if taking a stand against almost the entire world is justified in the name of anything or anyone, let alone in the name of freedom. As if foisting Western democracy, beliefs, and culture on a group of people we make no attempt to understand is any more righteous than the invective they spew at us.

In a Nov. 4 column on TomPaine.com (republished on Common Dreams), Harpers magazine contributing editor Greg Palast outlined how Bush won the election based on "spoilage" or the number of ballots typically thrown out in an election -- usually, he claims, these happen to be minority and poorer voters' ballots cast for democratic candidates. Makes ya wonder.

Thom Hartmann's Nov. 6 Common Dreams column cited evidence of how easy it is to tamper with optically scanned paper ballots. Links to Florida election results by county and registrations by party make for a pretty convincing argument against a Bush win in that state.

Like my friend, I believe I'm barely left of center in my political beliefs. Although my husband claims I'm "way lefter" than he is (and he's a former union committee man). I heard a radio talk show pundit declare today that the huge percentage of Americans who voted for Kerry, purportedly the Senate's most liberal member, shows that the country is not as right as Bush claims for his mandate.

So what's left? For starters, it's not to cry over what we can't change, as ex-Prez Bill Clinton has admonished us, but to get to work. Never having been overtly political myself, I'm pledging to go out and find out what this means for me.

And what's left? It's humans caring for humans in what I still believe to be the greatest democracy in the world. We on the left are yet a pretty powerful force for what's right. I think we can still make a run at it.