Dada in my dreams; chickens and rabbits

OK, so I had major surgery last week and my body is full of all sorts of drugs including the still much loved and needed painkillers, but I must say my dreams for the last several nights have been quite bizarre...and also more hopeful than I'm allowing in my conscious mind, which I am forcing to "be realistic" but in any case, when I find a Dadaesque poem written on the walls of my bedroom, I have to take notice.

Anyone who has had the pleasure to be familiar with Dr. Ann Faraday's books Dream Power and The Dream Game knows that houses are generally oneself and the rooms in them, different part of oneself. Yesterday, naptime, I was living in this wonderful, mostly white, old-fashioned house on a grassy knoll (hmmm...) which I didn't own but was free to alter to suit my needs. I kept finding rooms I didn't know existed, upstairs, downstairs, all around stairs. One very nice feature about the house on the grassy knoll was that the previous owner had had friendships with many dogs, and those dogs still came to visit every day; we got to be friends without my having to be responsible for them.

By my evening dream, I was repainting the bedroom in my old house white, in preparation for taking some of the walls with me. I realized that my nephew had come into the room when I wasn't there and had painted different parts of the walls vivid primary and jewel colors. At first I thought he had "ruined" it, until I took a closer look. A panel on one wall was painted with the words:
zero equals dada
one is dada minus one
two is dada plus dada
three is dada
four is dada
five is dada minus five.

I'm taking that with me, I thought in my dream.

So, to bracket that dream, I found a video on BoingBoing that you simply must see of two chickens breaking up a fight between two rabbits. I don't have sound on my computer, but i think it goes something like this: Stop it, you bad rabbits! What do you think you're doing? Cut it out right now! How dare you waste my time like this? Don't you know you've interrupted my cluckada? Now, I'm going to stand. right. here. until I know you've stopped. Hhmph!
The White Room: Katherine Dutiel

Shipping containers for Tent City?

Stone Soup Station is reporting that a donor may be bringing ten shipping containers to Nashville's tent city to Nashville's Tent City. I've been trying to keep up on some of the great re-use ideas for shipping containers, which would otherwise sit in rail and shipyards, rusting away. Check it out.

Sorry, I prefer

Sorry, I prefer
to sit upright
to feel my fingertips
to let my hair just grow
to let the sun
have its way with me
to tell time with my bones.

How will we feed ourselves? Food pantries feel the pinch

Pamela Metaxas at the Republican checked in with the area food pantries in an article on Tuesday, and the news is not good: as you might suspect, demand is up and supply is down. Well, few of us are better off this year than last. We need to find ways to feed ourselves.

There's a commercial on TV that drives me crazy. It shows a family in a car trying to eat a fast food meal. Soda is slopping, ketchup is dripping, and a hidden voice says, "Since when did this become a sit-down meal?" Next scene is set in a kitchen, eager family around the table, and mom pulling a pre-made Stouffer's lasagna out of the oven. "Now that's a sit-down meal!" the voice exclaims. Oh, yeah? Convenience foods are convenient, and that's about it.for value.

In future posts I intend to talk about community-supported agriculture, food coops, community gardens, kitchen gardens and bulk purchasing. But we have a long winter ahead of us, and the best food in the world will be for naught unless people start learning/remembering how to cook.

OK, I'm generalizing; I do know people who cook a lot and cook well./ But I'm not sure those folks are in the majority anymore.

We were on a pretty tight budget when I was a kid and I know now we usually ran out of money before the next paycheck. Coming from a French-Irish household, I can't say my mother was a very creative cook. Still, one of my favorite meals was potato stew with lots of black pepper. Basically, this was potatoes and onions sliced thin and thickened with a paste of flour. Maybe there'd be a small salad also. Then there was creamed peas and tuna on toast, or sometimes just the peas. Nutrition would balance out over time. Anyway, we got by.

My organization, Arise for Social Justice, is collecting "end of the month" recipes. if you have one, you can send it as a comment or email me at michaelannb@gmail.com.

Laughing dog

From Neatorama

The evil crime of arson

An election night fire at a Black church in Springfield is ruled arson, leading to suspicions of a hate crime, with counter-accusations that someone in the congregation lit the fire and is "playing the race card."

A Springfield resident is arrested for hiring a fifteen year old boy to set fire to a house he he owned and rented out. Four tenants were home at the time.

Both of these recent incidents reminded me of the sad story of someone I used to know, Jerry Rife.

In 1970 I was living in a three bedroom tenement on the corner of Columbia and Broadway just off Central Square with a varying cast of six, sometimes seven other people, and Jerry was one of them. (This address's big claim to fame was that it was the former residence of radical bomber Stanley Bond, which we found out one day when the FBI burst into our apartment, ignored an ounce of pot on the kitchen table, and searched every room before departing.)

We were a somewhat typical hippie household-- musicians, poets, activists and acidheads-- living on part-time jobs and spare change. Jerry was the first person I'd met who'd grown up in foster care, sometimes in a home but more often in an institution. Jerry was in his early twenties and had a brother a couple of years younger who had also grown up in foster care. They had been separated for most of their childhood but Jerry had finally tracked down his brother, who had aged out of foster care at eighteen and was crashing with some friends in a Boston residential hotel. It was Jerry's big dream to save enough money for his brother and him to get a place together.

One day Jerry came home with tears streaming down his face. The hotel where his brother was staying had caught fire and his brother-- and Jerry's dream-- was dead. The fire was determined to be arson.

Jerry drifted away after that and we lost track of each other. Some years later I heard about an arson scandal in Boston, which had been plagued with fires in the early 70's. The scandal revolved around collusion between property owners and some members of the Boston Fire Department. I don't know that the fire in which jerry's brother died was part of that scandal or a separate incident.

I've often wondered what became of Jerry. If anyone knows him, I would be happy to hear. He'd be in his late fifties now and I believe he was a townie, born and raised in the metropolitan Boston area. After all these years so many memories have faded, but I will never forget the tears on Jerry's face the day his brother died.

Homeless man found dead in Northampton

Yesterday morning I checked the news and found an article by Fred Contrada at the Republican about a homeless man found dead in Northampton. His name was John Paul Kozlowski and apparently he'd been sleeping out in the Meadows,.

I asked my sister, a former staffer at the Warming Place, if she knew him.

"I thought he'd gone to Alaska!" she exclaimed.

I hope to find out more about Mr. Kozlowski in the coming days. If anyone knows more, please respond.

Meanwhile I continue to wonder where the area's homeless people will be spending their days this winter.

Internally displaced: refugees abound in rich and poor countries

You can hide the homeless and internally displaced for a while, but not forever.

Four years ago the government forcibly removed 36,000 families living in a slum in New Delhi, India and promised them land and a fresh start in a "model resettlement community" in Bawana, 40 kilometers away. But the government counts only 9,000 families in need of help; 27,000 additional families were evicted and no one seems to know where most of them they are.Most of the internally displaced relocated to Bawana still don't have running water or electricity.

Barbados has divided its country into residential and non-residential areas in an effort to reduce the risk of water pollution in water catchment areas. But squatters continue to live in water catchment area; five of their communities have been bulldozed but hundreds of people find their way back to the area because they have nowhere else to go.

In the U.S., a tent city in Ontario, CA was set up as a temporary refuge for the area's homeless, but grew so quickly that in May, public officials removed anyone who could not prove they were originally from the area. In Seattle, WA an intentionally-designed tent city called "Nickelsville" after the city's Mayor Nickels is on its third home, currently in the parking lot of the University Christian Church, and housing 90 people.

In the UK, a website called the Advisory Service for Squatters post listings of vacant property in the UK and helps match British people as well as Eastern Europeans and others with the properties.

Nearly one-sixth of the world's population live in squatter communities or otherwise unorganized townships and parking lots. As long as the economic disparity between the world's weathiest and poorest citizens continues to grow, the numbers of internally displaced persons will grow also.

Today, November 10, hundreds of bloggers at Bloggers Unite, a project of BlogCatalogue, are writing about the dilemma of refugees around the world. I'm encouraging everyone to take a look in our own backyards: refugees are not just in faraway countries but everywhere among us. Figure out what you can do to help and then-- take action. Go to Refugees Unite to learn more, and check out the posts at Bloggers Unite.

Photo: A squatters' flag from the International Institute of Social History

Eclipsed by national politics, homeless murders still unsolved

Police in Long Beach, California have identified the last of five people found shot to death in a homeless encampment the weekend of November 1st, but the motive and the perpetrator remain unknown. Police became aware of the murders when they received an anonymous phone call, and they are hoping the caller will come forward with more information.

One of the two women who was murdered was not homeless, but spent considerable time at the encampment.

In Los Angeles, police are still looking for the persons who set John McGraham on fire on October 9. Mr. McGraham was well-known and well-liked in the Rampart area. More than 300 of his family and friends gathered the week after his murder for a memorial service, and showed a slideshow of photos of different stages of Mr. McGraham's life, including his last job as a bellhop for the Ambassador Hotel.

The Los Angeles City Council has authorized a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.

In an unusual move, John Walsh of America's Most Wanted is featuring the case of John McGraham on his show. His site tells a longer story of Mr. McGraham's life and death.

Photo: John McGraham as a child.

Oldie but goodie

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
_______________

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example ofsomething you forgot?
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the
next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-one-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken ?
WITNESS: Is this a trick question?
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh..... I was getting laid!
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Are you shittin' me? Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
_________________________________ _______________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Now whose death do you suppose terminated it?
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Guess.
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your
attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
___________________ _____________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead
people. Would you like to rephrase that?
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What
school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
________________________________________________

ATTORNEY : Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m..
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
________________________________________________

-- And the best for last: ---

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

A traffic observation

Why is it that when you're in traffic in your car, trying to make a left-hand turn, no one will give you an opening except the very last car in line, who somehow hasn't looked in his rearview mirror to realize you can take that turn as soon as he goes by? Of course you have to be grateful, but it seems such a wasted gesture.

Conversely, why is it that when you're the last car in line, with clear sailing behind you, some idiot is going to cut in right in front of you, causing you to slam on your brakes? And he seems to have no idea of what he's done, mind a million miles away, hurrying and getting one whole car length ahead of you?

Marijuana decrim: local DAs will follow the law-- for now

Hampden County District Attorney announced yesterday that he was dropping all charges currently pending for possession of small amounts of marijuana and intended to act as if the law turning possession of marijuana into a civil offense was already in place.

Question Two passed overwhelmingly in Massachusetts on Election Day, and because of its strong community support-- 65% in favor-- Bennett said he would not work for the repeal of the law, which is set to go into effect December 4.

Bennett will also end a diversion program in his office which is heavily populated by those arrested for possession of marijuana.

Other district attorneys are not sure if they will attempt to have the law repealed, which would require action by the Massachusetts Legislature. Given the commonwealth's fiscal crisis, the estimated $30 million savings may be enough incentive for the Legislature to leave the issue alone.

Proponents of marijuana reform estimate

Hate crime? Hours after election, black church burns

Sometime after 3 a.m., just hours after Barack Obama was declared the next president of the United States, the fire department in Springfield Massachusetts received an urgent call: the nearly constructed new home of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ was on fire. By 7 a.m. this morning, the building was declared a total loss-- about $2 million in damages. Three firefighters were slightly injured while fighting the blaze.

Pastor of the predominantly African-American church Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr. said that the church was down but not out. "Our belief in God will sustain us. ... Our faith is of such quality and maturity that we will be building." Robinson said. Springfield Republican

There were few reasons for the building to burn, Springfield Fire Department spokesperson Dennis Leger said, because the building was vacant and utilities to the 90%-completed building had not yet been connected. The fire is considered suspicious and by this morning the site was being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

State Representative Ben Swan, who was on his way to meet with Bishop Robinson when contacted, said that the community would be kept informed of developments. Bishop Robinson is a member of the Black Pastors Council, which held a Get Out the Vote for Obama rally last Saturday. (I was honored to be asked to speak.)

Springfield voters gave 75% of its vote to Barack Obama yesterday but at least a few of the 25% who cast their vote elsewhere suspect Bishop Robinson had the church burned for the insurance money, or that maybe church members went to the church to celebrate and set it on fire with a candle . Bishop Robinson says he's at a loss to understand why anyone would want to harm the church.

Bryant Robinson Jr. was Deputy Superintendent of Springfield Public Schools for many years and in line to become superintendent in 1989 when the when the Springfield School Committee decided to conduct a national search instead. Many Black leaders remain convinced to this day that the search was conducted so that Robinson could be passed over.

I want to live in Barack Obama's country

One quick observation before I run off for the day: Last night, I looked at the crowd surrounding McCain at this concession speech, and the faces around him were all white. I looked at the crowd surrounding Barak Obama and I saw white, Black, Asian and Latino/as cheering and hugging each other.

That's the country in which I want to live, and as a community organizer, I am more than ready to take on his challenge to "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

PS: You notice I've chosen a green map, not a red and blue one, to illustrate what our future can hold.
:

Massachusetts makes the right choices

For once, the value of organizing is clear: Massachusetts has rejected Question One, eliminating the state income tax, and approved Questions Two and Three, decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana and banning dog racing. I can't remember if there's ever been a time before in any election when everything went the way I believed it should go.

I am particularly glad for the people whose lives can no longer be ruined by a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana.

Why I'm voting for Barack Obama

In spite of our history of Republican governors, Massachusetts is one of those states that can always be counted on to vote Democratic in the national elections. That has freed up many of us up to "vote our consciences" without fear of jinxing the Democratic candidate, but has also sometimes had an enervating effect on progressives using the electoral system to organize. I did see that start to change during the Deval Patrick campaign. The opportunity to have a Black governor was too good for many to pass up.

Through the years I've mostly voted Democratic, but I can't say I've been a great Democrat-- haven't joined ward committees and have rarely worked on a campaign. One exception was the Jesse Jackson campaign of 1984. I was inspired by the Jackson of 1984. By volunteering for his campaign, I was taken under the wing of some of Springfield's most dedicated and political African-American leaders-- then State Rep. Ray Jordan, E. Henry Twiggs, Candace Lopes, to name a few-- and the contacts I made there have lasted 25 years. I also learned the basic skills of looking up numbers in reverse directories, phonebanking, door to door work and stand-outs. I know that the Internet has added to a campaign organizer's toolbox, but still, nothing beats the basics. I wish some of my progressive friends could bring themselves to roll up their sleeves and labor with the on-the-ground Democrats.

Twenty-five years later I am far less likely to be idealistic about any candidate because the options for a political platform in the United States are very narrow and defined by the parameters of capitalism and Christianity. Unlike most other democracies, we have two major parties only, and while I agree there's a difference between them, it's the difference between one and three on a scale of ten. I will never forget sitting in a homeless shelter lunchroom watching Bill Clinton be inaugurated on the TV, when all of us expected him to include ending homelessness in his address, and the slow slumping of shoulders when homeless people were ignored yet again.

I am a faithful voter, however, because of what every organizer knows: Use what you've got to get what you need.

Within this framework, the candidacy of Barack Obama is so extraordinary that for months it barely seemed real to me. If truth be told, I still find it difficult to believe that the U.S. is ready to elect a Black man to the Presidency. but I'm starting to think I'm wrong. I want to be proud of my country. If Barack is elected, it'll be one of those too-rare moments when we can say to each other, Well, I guess the struggle is worth it after all.

So here's my short list of reasons I'm voting for Barack Obama.

Save the environment, save the world. I won't need to worry about policy decisions that make things worse and can expect some positive movement. (Nuclear energy and clean coal be damned.)

Jobs, jobs, jobs. I'm tired of seeing people work and struggle to get by . I'm tired of seeing young people grow up not knowing the value of work. My first jobs out of high school were in factories, making things, and relatively speaking, they were still probably the best-paying jobs I've ever had. Moving toward energy independence could almost be like a national jobs program.

Peace and civil rights. I'm not a pacifist (maybe in my next life) but I believe war should be such a last resort as to make it nearly impossible. I doubt Barack Obama will find it necessary to start any new wars and he'll help us get out of the ones we're in.

So I'm off to the polls then home for a long night in front of the TV with my sister and her husband and a six-pack of beer (sorry, Sarah Palin). Michaelann the organizer is voting Obama.

(BTW, it's time for Blogger to stop underlining Barack Obama as if it's a misspelled word!)