Meta Watershed: 5/18/08

Saturday, May 24, 2008

THE RAW STORY LINKED TO MY WHITE NIGHT RIOT POST

Just to let you all know: The Raw Story, the very major online newspaper which focuses on political news, ran a link on May 22 to the Group News Blog feature of my post on the White Night Riot. It's now in their archives for that date at 8:48 a.m., listed as "White Night riot, lesbians vs. cops" (LOVE it!)

Since then, my story was also linked to by Edge of the American West at Milk and Twinkies (brilliant title, that). Edge of the American West is a stunningly written history blog that I read daily, so I'm duly honored.

Thanks to all who were involved in this. The word is out.

(Cicada 17, poster by Jay Ryan)

GINNY BATES: OVER ALL

(Young women roofing the hotel of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony, Antelope Valley, California, circa 1914)

Here's another slightly out of sequence segment of my novel-in-progress, Ginny Bates. Following my last post 19 May, the action would include Myra seeing Nancy and having a talk with Chris. The following section takes place two days after that, but before she and Myra go to Olympia to visit Gillam and Carly.

If you are already a familiar reader, begin below. If you need background, check the links in the sidebar on the right, fifth item down, to get caught up.

May 2012

When Myra got up, Ginny was in the kitchen pulling out a first batch of yogurt. A jug of cold hibiscus tea was leaving puddles on a plate in the middle of the dining table, and Myra sat down on her chair, poured a glass, and looked out at the drenching rain blearily. She had been up until 2:00 trying to perfect a poem for a themed anthology, and this morning she felt like she had butchered it beyond salvation. She wasn't going to try re-reading it until she wasn't so sour.

Ginny carried over a bowl of warm yogurt and chilled fruit salad, along with an oval-shaped pancake six inches in diameter. When Ginny made pancakes, they tended to come out oval.

"What's this batter?" asked Myra, assembling a stack of fruit and yogurt on top of the cakes.

"Whole wheat, buckwheat, wheat germ, Hain's version of grapenuts, and chopped walnuts" said Ginny. Her experiments were usually bulky but worked, somehow. After a bite, Myra decided not to ask for syrup; these would do. After another bite, Myra noticed that Ginny had on clothes.

Friday, May 23, 2008

THE MINIATURE EARTH

(Planet Earth Inversed, from VladStudio -- click on image to reveal a larger version with all the interesting detail)

In the year following my knee replacement surgery and subsequent cognitive insult, I discovered (and derived a sense of balance from) The Miniature Earth, a webmovie which begins with the "idea of reducing the world’s population to a community of only 100 people" and providing a snapshot of who would live in that village. Perhaps all of you are familiar with it, but in case you are not: It has been updated since the original creation by Donella Meadows, and since her death, Sustainability Institute has carried on her vision and work.

Clicking on the link below will allow you to view the third version of The Miniature Earth. It's an invaluable source of perspective. I especially recommend viewing it with children, allowing them to ask questions and brainstorm afterward.

If you want to see Donella's original version (just a list, not the movie) while she was adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, go to State of the Village Report.

You can also download a copy for your own PC for $5, the proceeds from which will be used to fund a social project.

For those of you without bandwidth or who for other reasons cannot view the webmovie, I'm transcribing the text after the fold.

YEAH, BABY

SPOILER ALERT: If you've not yet watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, do not jump to after the fold.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

PAY ATTENTION: NOT ALL ALLIES HAVE THEIR BRAINS ENGAGED

I've given up on Daily Kos, where woman-hating earns you snickers and advancement, except for stopping by twice a week to read Bill in Portland Maine (start your own blog, Bill, and get us all off the hook.) However, in my skip down the page yesterday, I noticed a poll posted by Meteor Blades which asked: Who do you assign the title of Worst President Ever?

Of the 15 choices offered (including "Other"), guess who was not on the list?

Kos's HERO in the 80s, Ronald Reagan. The architect of scorched earth neoconservatism from which Dubya was spawned.

So much for learning from the past, eh, folks? And yeah, tell me again why I should trust your slobbering enthusiasm for a new "He will show us the way" candidate?

They've jumped the shark. I'd say remember, you heard it here first, but I'm not the first, it's being said quietly many places.

CITY HALL POEM

(The steps of San Francisco’s City Hall the day after Valentine’s Day and during the first week that San Francisco started issuing same-sex marriage licenses)

I just dug out a poem I wrote four years ago that's an interesting synthesis of two of my recent posts and the fulcrum -- San Francisco City Hall -- between them. In February of 2004 two of my friends here, Jen and Jackie, flew to California to get married. I read this poem at their celebration party afterward.

21 MAY 1979

Tear gas hangs in the air
A just-visible cloud
You can thread your way around it

We went up the alley beside AAA
and rode the Market Street trolley
down to Noe Valley, where we'd
left our cars going to a rally
We thought

Getting on after
the riot had hit the news was
my first taste of accepting their
fear in lieu of respect
Eleven of us filed up
the narrow stairs, paid fares
Booted, wet bandanas at our necks
Loose clothes, buzzed hair
Everybody on the car went not just
silent, but still. Not even nudges

Here's a bit of trivia you might not know
When a police car burns, at some point
the siren goes off and doesn't cease
until the car is almost gutted
In a city plaza Stonehenge-stelaed
by massive government buildings
this wail is contained, bounced back and forth

We burned eleven cop cars that night

I remember how the fags would
muscle slam a parking meter
until it shifted from the concrete
three or four of them on a side, boys
in leather chaps, sissies grown up
Grunting, laughing, until it moved
like a molar come loose, and
they could rip it from the sidewalk
Sakrete bulbous root at one end,
the other a metal lozenge with
EXPIRED showing through the window

They'd lay it in their arms and heave
it back and forth, like someone in
a sling, until with their cheer, it launched
in an arc flicker-lit by burning cars
Carried up by sirens, exploding
through the filigreed windows of
that City Hall where Milk and Moscone
had been gunned down by the
cops' chosen boy, using his
never-turned-in service revolver

The next day on my delivery route
I made a point of swinging by
Every window on the front was
boarded up with raw plywood
Car-sized scorch marks on the
streets around the square
Crowds of people on the sidewalk
stood shocked and silent in the
steady light of midday. Suddenly they
knew, and we knew, we could be
pushed too far. Cops rode three to
a patrol car that day, and I got
four tickets for made-up violations
before, with gritted teeth, I scraped
off my delivery car the sticker I'd
pasted on the bumper that morning:

IF YOU'RE WHITE IT'S NOT CALLED MURDER

That City Hall are the steps you climbed
to be married, to get a piece of paper
I would never have believed could
carry our names. I can hear the wheel
clanking to the end of its circuit, and
the whir as it rests a moment before
starting round again. Here you go

© Maggie Jochild
10 March 2004, 1:53 p.m.

KETTLE'S ON: FEEDING THE HUNGRY STRANGER

(Downed 250-year-old live oak tree, Texas State Capitol Grounds, Austin)

While the rest of the country is having unseasonably cool weather, here in Texas we're breaking daily heat records (101 in Austin yesterday). This is after a week of horrific storms that smashed windows in the dome of the capitol building here, tore up trees all over this tree-filled city, and left 39,000 Austinites without power for a few days. It isn't enough to say "global warning" with a wry grin and turn up the AC (if you have AC). The real impact the shift in weather patterns is having, will increasingly continue to have, is on farmers. Those who provide food for the rest of us, and, especially, those billions around the globe who subsist solely from what they can grow. Interrupt that cycle, and they starve to death.

It isn't going to be enough for us to pay more at the store for our food, either, although that is a change which has been long overdue. The increased costs are not necessarily going to organic or family farms, for one thing. For another, U.S. governmental subsidies are still keeping the cost of certain Big Ag crops artificially low and destroying a "free market" internationally. Removing those subsidies will, we think, restore some international equilibrium, remove corporate interest in certain crops at the expense of others who are far healthier for us (junk food depends on the subsidized crops), and with the return of real competition, increase crop diversity and rescue of strains headed for market extinction but whose use to us could be potentially life-saving.

Beyond that, we need to return to our foreign policy the simple comprehension that starvation or living on the edge is what creates most war and violence. Especially violence against women and children. If you call yourself a feminist, you must actively support programs which will remove women and children from the categories of "commodity" or "expendable" in times of scarce resources. In terms of numbers affected, it's far more important than other so-called gender issues.

So, support your local non-corporate food production and distribution networks, but also keep pressure on your elected officials to help us feed the world. Our national image has been covered with feces by the actions of the current government. We have a shot at cleaning it off and redeeming ourselves (the real path to ending terrorism).
, Wateroak and Thunderheart Bison, Loncito's Lamb); Fresh Eggs (BCF Hen House Eggs & Louis Young's free-range eggs); Local Miles of Chocolate; Aunt Penny's organic cotton t-shirts and tote bags, small organic cotton produce bags, plus the farm books (Eating in Season: Recipes from BCF and Stories from the Hen House).

(Aunt Penny out for a spring stroll among the dianthus at Boggy Creek) Farms)

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

THE WHITE NIGHT RIOT, 21 MAY 1979 AND LESBIANS AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE

(Flyer created and distributed by Lesbians Against Police Violence and The Stonewall Coalition [mixed-gender lesbian/gay organization allied with LAPV] in summer 1979 in the aftermath of the White Night Riots; I'm pretty sure the graphic was drawn by Emily Siegel)

[Just to let you all know: The Raw Story, the very major online newspaper which focuses on political news, ran a link on May 22 to the Group News Blog feature of my post on the White Night Riot. It's now in their archives for that date at 8:48 a.m., listed as "White Night riot, lesbians vs. cops" (LOVE it!)

Since then, my story was also linked to by Edge of the American West at Milk and Twinkies (brilliant title, that). Edge of the American West is a stunningly written history blog that I read daily, so I'm duly honored.]

Today is the 29th anniversary of the largest lesbian and gay riot in the history of the world. Not only was I there, I was one of the women in Lesbians Against Police Violence responsible for the rally from which it arose.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

LESBIAN POP CULTURE NEWS THIS WEEK

(Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, pioneers of lesbian liberation; photo by Jill Posener)

I don't usually do pop culture on this blog, unless it's got a political connection, and the love scandals of sapphic celebrities do not count as lesbian liberation news. But I've had more down-time than usual and have watched some trash TV, so guess what: I'm going to share!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESSE WENDEL!

CROSSING THE BEARDMORE

We're drawn to the stories whose characters
are unmistakably heroes, no snarky take-down
will be done of them in revisionist history
We know the phrases, even if we've never
left home: South Col, rounding the Cape,
Donner Pass, crossing the Ohio

We can hear the screams of drowning mares
in the horse latitudes. We finger our gums
and eat an orange. We tell our children about
the Latin phrase on the collar of a dog
found with his boy in the ruins of Pompeii

We cry for those who died in a blizzard.
Run down by a wave. Choking on Zyklon B

We cry because we can, it is enough
to cry. We find room in our lungs for breath
after we grieve. Room in our minds
to think of other things.

While all around us are legends
Too close to leave us room

The woman in a wheelchair whose hands
cannot push her forward, so she smiles
and waits, says "Thank you" with emphasis
for the 3000th time.

The paramedic who leaves crying children
with a frightened mother because they've
survived the main tremor, but the freeway
has collapsed. He will not come home until
he's pulled too many bodies to count
from cars crushed like beer cans.
She'll divorce him because he can't talk
about what's inside, because he isn't
reliable.

The mother serving bare macaroni with salt
and a little tabasco. For dessert last summer's
red plum jam. She tells stories about the
Superstition Mine and Jim Bowie, tomorrow
at school they will have a full tray, maybe
she can borrow from a neighbor again.

We believe what we are taught when argument
can mean shunning or death:
Raping a baby brings good fortune
PTSD is the refuge of a sissy
An unwitnessed rape means death by stoning
Homeless people are addicts who wouldn't stop
A woman who dresses like a man just wants
a dick, one way or another
Hard work always pays off
Changing your mind means you were wrong
to begin with, why should we trust you again

We pull out the worn wooden box and sort
one more time. It's late.
The pain med is not kicking in.
What was I born for, again? Oh, yeah
Fake it until we have another minute
of pure belief. Sometimes
as good as it gets is
as good as it gets.

© Maggie Jochild, 19 May 2008, 7:37 p.m.
For Jesse

LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, 20 MAY 2008

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.

Two riffs on the same image: