Global Warming And Friends

Global warming is yet one more in a long line of issues that seems to divide people into believers and naysayers. As a person who firmly believes you don't get something for nothing, burning fossil fuels is an obvious no no. How can you burn up energy in 100 years that it took untold millions of years to creating without violating the something for nothing rule? At the very least, we run out of oil and need to find other ways to live in harmony with the planet. Some people argue that American lifestyles require high carbon fuel usage - but at the end of the day that's what's killing us. We're all fat because we're living off the energy of dinosaurs from a million years ago instead of the calories we consumed today.

I don't know what the answer is other than to go forward to the past - to a world were human energy is important, people lived in self-sustaining communities and our homes aren't filled with toxic crap from China. At the end of the day, buying stuff isn't bringing me happiness, hugs are.

In the spirit of local activism and global warming, I want to take a few minutes to share some of my local heroes. Carolyn Chase and Chris Klein - the amazing duo - who live a few blocks from me and who started the huge Earth Fair that happens every year in Balboa Park. I've volunteered with Earth Fair, am saving a creek thanks to a non-profit these two amazing people started, San Diego Earth Works, and have hope that sane decentralized transportation will become a reality in San Diego thanks to Move San Diego - another group with ties to the amazing duo. If it's environmentally progressive in San Diego, this is Chris and Carolyn are your connection.

The dynamic duo is in Copenhagen at the United Nations Conference on Climate change and have put together a website to allow those of us stuck in our mundane lives to hear some of the debates between regular people like ourselves.

Thank you Chris and Carolyn for all you do. You rock.

***From an email from Chris****************

Carolyn Chase and I are in Copenhagen at the UN conference on climate change (COP15). Officially, we are registered delegates of the Sierra Club, of which we are both life members.

We puzzled over how best to make a difference at the conference. We decided to create a special website, Message to America, and post videos of other delegates speaking their "message to America." We have also posted photos, and and there is a blog of updates, quotes, special notes, etc.

The goal is to give you a better picture of the kind of world citizens who are attending the event, and how critical this issue is for much of the world. It's one thing to deal with figures and technical abstractions. It's another to listen to a woman who's island is in danger of slipping beneath the waves.

**************End email from Chris*******************

Sonia Sotomayor and Mission Bay Park

At first glance, most people won't see a connection between the current debate about the role of ethnicity and gender in Obama's selection for his first Supreme Court nominee, but when I walk in Mission Bay Park I think about race, culture and the changing times quite a bit due to the cross-section of San Diegans enjoying time along the bay.

The east side of Mission Bay Park is packed with picnickers at this time of year. Small picnics - a couple or parents with their kids. But there are also large picnics to celebrate birthdays and weddings, anniversaries and holidays. No doubt some of the picnics are just an occasion for friends and family to spend some time in Mission Bay Park, eat, visit, let the kids play, and just wile away the day with cool ocean breezes.

There seems to be two types of large picnics when it comes to race and/or ethnicity. All white picnics. Or picnics with some combination of Hispanics, African-Americans, Filipinos, Caucasians, etc. and a bunch of multi-ethnic children running around. The former is much fewer in numbers than the latter these days.

Which brings me to the charge that Ms. Sotomayor's rulings will be shaded by her ethnicity. Of course it will. And by her gender. And by her life experiences. When a white male is nominated for the Supreme Court, why don't people worry that his gender, ethnicity and socio-economic class will shade his rulings. I don't believe any human lives completely outside their experiences and let's be real here: gender, ethnicity and socio-economic class create your lived experiences.

I think the words "ethnicity" and "gender" are code for the fear that if privileged white Americans no longer control the Supreme Court, the interests of the wealthy will no longer take precedence over the issues of all Americans. This opinion is probably justified, but I'm ready for a Supreme Court that represents the variety of lived experiences, ethnic backgrounds and genders that make up the USA. I live for the day when a transvestite is nominated to the Supreme Court.

As to lived experiences, if the myth of America is that everyone has a chance if they work hard enough, then let's start rewarding those who started life with few advantages and excelled in spite of the obstacles instead of the sons and daughters of the wealthy who were given everything that Ms. Sotomayor worked her ass off to achieve.

This is the American dream.

Friendship Park - Silent Vigil on April 15

Friendship Park is in the northwestern corner of Mexico and the southwestern corner of the USA. It's been a place where people from both countries could get together and picnic, talk, see family they have no other way of seeing, and connect the two sides of the San Diego/Tijuana metropolis - one ecosystem, one community, one city with a wall down the middle.

The federal government has a total lack of understanding of the hardships a community faces with a wall in the middle of it.

This week President Obama will sit down to visit with President Felipe Calderon in Mexico. At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security is shutting down Friendship Park, where people from San Diego and Tijuana have visited with friends for generations. In solidarity with those being denied access to this historic venue, and in protest of DHS decision-making , which has excluded all community voices, friends of Friendship Park invite you to join a Silent Vigil on the day before the presidential meeting.

Where: Border Patrol Headquarters
2411 Boswell Rd
Chula Vista, CA 91914

When: Wednesday, April 15th, 12 noon
Friends of Friendship Park will arrive early and stay late –
join us on your lunch hour!

What to bring: Silence!
Wear white clothes. Please also bring Mexican candies as
gifts for Border Patrol.

For more information on Friendship Park and what it means to those of us in this part of the world, visit http://www.friendshippark.org.
If you can't be there on April 15, visit the website and send a message that now more than ever we need to maintain community and communications between countries.

McCarthyism Redux

Communist threat = war on terrorism. Will we never learn?

I Don't Deserve This Moment

My entire life has been lived in the world of cultural change. As a child, I experienced the changes unfolding in the world and as an adult I've tried to move the change forward a few inches. Yet today, on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the eve of the inauguration of our first African American, Black, Negro president, Barack Obama, I feel like I'm reaching the top of the mountain and I truly don't feel I deserve the celebration or the joy I am feeling.

Not that I haven't been harmed by racism and inequality, because I have, because we all have. Not that I haven't tried to help others understand why racism is wrong, because I have, because so many of us have. But I haven't been beaten, arrested, denied a job or prevented from being with the one I love because of the color of my skin (or my sexual orientation for that matter). Listening to our American heroes from the big like Congressman John Lewis to the 90+ year old set of African American civil rights foot soldiers talk about what this day means, makes me feel like an impostor, like I haven't suffered enough to enjoy the celebration.

And yet.... Tuesday morning I'll be watching it live on television and, no doubt, I'll be crying like a baby.

Be the change you which to see in this world.

Since when is public dissent terrorism?

For those of you who somehow missed this, in the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last summer, people were planning to engage in peaceful assembly outside the convention center. Now I don't pretend to know all the stunts that were planned - stunts designed to draw attention to issues and causes, but if someone tries to tell me any of these people were planning on doing anything more than clog a street or two, I'd say go see your shrink.

To make a long story short, there were a lot of meetings where people discussed how they could make their voice heard in the media circus that is a political convention. Before the convention even started, eight of the organizers were arrested and charged with a host of crimes that could result in more than ten years in prision including conspiracy to riot in the 2nd degree in furtherance of terrorism, a felony which is the first ever use of Minnesota’s PATRIOT Act.

Since when is a convention more important than the constituction? Luce Guillen-Givins, Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Eryn Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald need your support.

If you are in the area on Sunday January 25th, please attend the
Defend The RNC8! Town Hall Meeting from 3 PM to 6 PM at Walker Church: 3104 16th Ave S. Minneapolis.

If you can't make the meeting, sign the petition to dismiss all the charges. What happens here is critical to the rights of all Americans to engage in civil disobedience, peaceful assembly and public dissent.

Featured Speakers on January 25 include:
*Coleen Rowley--Retired FBI agent, TIME Magazine's 2002 Person of the Year
*Phyllis Kahn--MN State Representative (DFL-59B)
*Peter Rachleff--Professor of History, Macalester College
*Michelle Gross--President, Communities United Against Police Brutality
*Meredith Aby--Anti-War Committee
*Mordecai Specktor--Publisher of American Jewish World, Father of Max Specktor

Speakers will be followed by small-group sessions and participatory discussion, with a focus on action! The event is free and open to the public. Snacks and child care will be available.

Toll Road Killed

From today's Los Angeles Times.

U.S. Commerce Department rejects Foothill South toll road
By Susannah Rosenblatt
10:33 AM PST, December 18, 2008

The controversial Foothill South toll road, proposed to connect south Orange County with north San Diego County, was handed a major blow this morning when the U.S. Commerce Department announced it would uphold the state Coastal Commission's rejection of the plan.

Thank you Southern California. We came together and said no toll roads through our parks and sacred places. Job well done. A huge shout out to Surfrider for all their hard work.

Barack Obama's Lack of Vision

I was as thrilled as the next person that the citizens of the United States of America finally elected a president who wasn't a white male. I was also thrilled we didn't elect the "old guy" and the "prom queen,", but really Mr. Obama, what's up with supporting big agriculture after all your talk about main street? Main street is organic food. Main street is small family farms. Main street is having local sources of food and maintain food security not putting more profits into the hands of big agri-business. It's not continuing the rush to patent the very food we eat. It's not expanding the level of genetically modified food eaten by our children when we don't understand the consequences.
Take a stand today.

Thankfully I am a member of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and we are taking a stand against agri-business as the future of America's farms. Join us in taking in telling Mr. Obama know that big business as usual isn't change. Putting corporate profits over family farms isn't change.

Just say no Vilsack!

This in from the OCA:

Despite a massive public outcry, including over 20,000 emails from the Organic Consumers Association, President-Elect Obama has chosen former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.

While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack's support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

The Organic Consumers Association is calling on organic consumers and all concerned citizens to join our call to action and block Vilsack's confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture. Please help us reach our goal of 100,000 petition signatures against Vilsack' nomination. Sign today! Your email will be sent to your Senators and the President-Elect's office.

Sign the petition!

Gay Marriage and Earthquakes

I received my "New California Earthquake Policy" a few days ago and actually took the time to read it. I know I'm crazy. But as I was reading the document, it hit home to me just how important marriage is in the event of an earthquake. Term definitions are listed on page one of my "Summary of Changes." Specifically, "Domestic Partnership. Under your new CEA policy, a domestic partner is not defined as an insured."

This is huge. If people think that a domestic partnership conveys all the rights of marriage, think again. So I guess if I'm in a domestic partnership and we own a house together, both of us would have to have our own earthquake insurance to protect us from the big one, or even a smaller one.

On page six of my policy, it says "Insured means you and the following persons if they are permanent residents of your household:
a. your relatives, whether related by blood, marriage or adoption; and b. anyone under the age of 21 who is in the care or custody of you or of any of your relatives who are permanent residents of your household.

I guess if I were in a relationship with someone under 21, then I'd be good. Of course that breaks my five year rule when it comes to relationships as I'm a bit over 30 (quite a bit).

As I'm writing this, Public Enemy is on the radio doing that kick ass song "Fight the Power" from Fear of a Black Planet. I'm waiting for some gay rappers to do a redux called Fear of a Gay Planet.

Getting involved with high level politics

I feel like I'm floundering in the dark, but I'm trying. How about the CEO of the Rodale Institute for Secretary of the USDA?

Discrimination Fallout

When California voters passed Proposition 8 on November 4, it seemed like the issue of marriage equality was dead in California (or at least on ice). But as I've talked to people and read papers and various internet sources, the aftershocks of the vote are shattering old alliances and causing each of us to search our hearts for the path of justice.

From discussions on how people over 60 were some of the key demographics that supported the marriage discrimination initiative to the rumors of Mormons leaving the church after being pressured into donating money towards the Yes on 8 campaign and realizing they didn't believe in discrimination, the aftershocks may ultimately be what brings down the old order. Online boycotts of Prop 8 financial supporters are popping up like mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest and an entire generation of activists have been born in the last two weeks and are doing an amazing job. The next person who talks shit about this country's younger generation is sitting at home with their fingers in their %Rk&*DSFKj.

The latest victim of fallout is the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP. Comparisons have grown between this latest civil rights issue and as some people call it The Civil Rights Movement (of the 1950s and 60s) and the old assumptions of alliances are being challenged. I've heard African American journalist denounce the similarity and others rejoice in it. I joined the San Diego protest on November 15 and listened to speaker after speaker invoke the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a blueprint for this current upwelling.

Apparently the President of the SF chapter of the NAACP was an outspoken opponent of proposition 8 or a support of equal rights for all depending on how confusing you want to be about the verbiage. The chapter's biggest fundraiser is coming up and according to the SF Chronicle, about 25% of planned participants are now boycotting the fund raiser. To compound the tensions, the African American community and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and Queer community include quite a bit of overlap.

The word on the street is to take this discussion to our friends and neighbors, our co-workers and community leaders. Tell everyone you know how discrimination hurts you personally and how it harms the people you love. Share the story of your gay neighbor who cat sits, or your son's lesbian soccer coach. Share the story of the transvestite tennis player you volley with on Sundays and the Republican ex-cop Mayor has a daughter who wants to marry her girlfriend at San Diego City Hall. Make the political personal and put a face on the the people being hurt by classifying their love and their lives as less than.

Each and everyone of us deserves to find love and create a family.

It Ain't Over 'till It's Over

The campaign of shock and awe that resulted in the passage of California's Proposition 8 (marriage inequality) was just the beginning. Over the weekend, people took to the streets to protest legalized discrimination, and for once, San Diego out protested San Franciscio -- ten to one by some accounts. Now the movement is spreading. Cities all across the United States will be holding rallies for Civil Rights on Saturday, November 15. 10:30 AM Pacific Time, 1:30 PM Eastern Time. Find a location near you at Join The Impact and just say NO to separate but equal.

One Person at a Time

There’s been a growing movement of churches and other mainstream groups engaging in social justice and issues of environmental protection. From the UN Summit for Religious and Spiritual Leaders to the various incarnations of the Social Forums, people of faith have been creating grassroots movements that focus on what we, the people, see as critical issues of social justice, equality, health care and protecting the earth. That’s the beauty of a right wing president who doesn’t understand the web of life or society for that matter – it forces the people to rise up and create a better world.

When Senator Obama stepped onto the world stage, he was riding the wave of thousand of activists with the dream that a better world is possible. Instead of telling people to work for him, he plugged in to swells rippling throughout our society and caught the wave to shore. A few wobbles here and there, but basically a clean ride.

But the shout out goes to all the people organizing on the ground for a future befitting the vision of the American dream. You are my heroes. And a brief word of warning. Just because we elected a Black man as president doesn’t mean we can let up on what we are doing. As Senator Obama said in Grant Park on November 4 "… you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead." So let the celebrations ring out and then let’s get back to our social forums and activist community meetings, our habitat restoration and sharing food with the hungry.

For as someone wise once said, "if the people lead, the leaders will follow." And lead we did, one step at a time, one person at a time. The only way that change is possible.

Peace out!

Tears of joy

Words are useless.
The expression on the Reverend Jesse Jasckon's face last night at Grant Park says it all.
~~ Mitakuye Oyasin!

Election Day & The Credit Crises

Today is election day and the influence of the recent credit meltdown is driving some people to vote for change.

In an ironic twist of fate, many people I spoke with this morning used their credit cards to donate to the campaign of their choice in an attempt to influence the election - myself included. It will probably take me a couple of months to pay off my donations to No on Prop 8, No on Prop 4, No on Prop D, and donations for both presidential candidates of interest to me: Cynthia McKinney and Barak Obama.

It was raining in San Diego when I went to the polls - the rain as unusual as two African American presidential candidates on the ballot. When I entered, two fabulous young people were working the area waving No on Prop 8 signs and passing out info cards. When I exited, the number had grown to 5. It's a close race, but I have hope. I have hope because in the last couple of weeks I have met so many young people putting their feet where their beliefs are. Young people standing up for equal rights. Straight, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender folks united in the quest to guarantee equal rights for all Californians.

I've been doing phone banking for the No on Prop 8 campaign and on Sunday I spoke to a young woman, R.M. Well, R.M., I'm counting on you to beat this proposition. You didn't know anything about the issues when I called, but once you found out, you promised me you would vote No on Prop 8 because you believe in equal rights for everyone. We only need one more vote than the opposition to defeat this ballot and I've put my faith in you. Don't let your children's, children's, children, me or yourself down.

Saving the world, one vote at a time.

The Outing of Proposition 8

Life is hysterically funny and deadly serious all at the same time. For years, LGBT people have had to decide to "come out," remain "in the closet," and/or risk being "outed."

As the battle heats up for and against proposition 8, the "outing" has started. All supporters with donation amounts both for and against Prop 8 are available online. So all you closet homophobs, you've just been "outed." And all of you slackers, get your donations in today or risk this fate:

First they came for the Communists,
      and I didn’t speak up,
          because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
      and I didn’t speak up,
          because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
      and I didn’t speak up,
          because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
      and by that time there was no one
          left to speak up for me.

    ~~by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

This is way too cool. Find OUT about your friends and neighbors here. Don't you just love the irony?

McCarthyism & Talk Radio

So this weekend I drove from San Diego to Carpenteria and back in a 1991 Geo Metro with a busted radio that is stuck on one AM station 24/7. Here in San Diego, that gets me El Voz del Pueblo out of Rosarito in Baja California - a great way to at least practice listening in Spanish. But as I drove north through Los Angeles, it picked up a conservative talk radio.

Now personally, I think Barak Obama is conservative and his two great qualifications to be president are he's one step to the left of John McCain and he's not a white man (we've had too many of them for president). I think Cynthia McKinney is a great, grounded candidate and her politics more closely represent the direction I think this country should go. That being said, financially I'm supporting both Obama and McKinney and hope if you're in a swing state you vote for Obama.

So back to talk radio - the alleged topic of today's monologue.

Apparently in the world of conservative talk radio, Mr. Obama is a socialist and would create a government far to the left of Great Britain and France. Given that terms left/right, conservative/liberal have no meaning for today's political climate (another topic for another day), and given that the standard of living, life expectancy and amount of vacation time are greater in those two countries and the infant mortality rate is lower (the US being better than Crotia but worse than Cuba, the UK and France), I don't see how this is a bad thing. But obviously I don't understand the psychology of talk radio unless it's as simple as fear.

McCarthyism is alive and well on talk radio. Of course now we have new words as well. In addition to communism, we have socialism and terrorism. If you don't like someone, pick your word and label them, pick your word and they go directly to jail. So which is it? Is Mr. Obama a socialist or a terrorist? And does it matter? The point is to label "others," people so different from us as to no longer be living breathing creatures that are worthy of compassion and respect. Labeling people as socialists or terrorists allows us to dismiss them or kill them on the battlefield. Defining the "enemy" as "other" is one of the fundamental rules of warfare.

Once you make friends with someone formerally labled as "other", they can no longer be labeled or dismissed. They must be dealt with as a living breathing human being with wants and needs similar to your own. Then we can move foward into finding ways of living that respect all of us from the Muslim to the anarchist.

Are Americans still so guilable as to fall for McCarthyism in what ever form it takes? Unfortunately, I fear the worst. American prove me wrong.

Marriage for All Who Want It

Personally, I'm not a fan of marriage. During my life I've met a handful of people whose lives seem to be more fulfilling, more creative, more exciting because they were married. I've met thousands of couples whose marriage seems nothing more than something to gripe about, like potholes in the road.

But that being said, I don't think anyone has a right to define marriage for all people under the eyes of the court.

The eyes of the church, any church, are different. Some churches decree only one marriage is valid before God, and if that's what a subset of people believe, I have no problem with that. If your faith believes marriages should be arranged between consenting adults, I have no problem with that. If you believe alcohol should not be served at a wedding, I have no problem with that.

If, as some people postulate, the point of marriage is to stabilize society and provide for children, I have no problem with that.

I guess about the only thing I have a problem with, is people trying to impose their faith on me. I'm OK with my beliefs, thank you very much. So feel free to create your own church and make your own rules about who and how to marry. Just don't expect your rules to apply to everyone.

On a more practical level, marriage provides jobs for thousands of people, from caterers to divorce attorneys. With the way the economy is, we should all be promoting weddings as a way to stimulate the economy.

And while you're at it, Vote No on Proposition 8 - why shouldn't my homosexual friends have the same rights to be in a fucked up marriage as everyone else?

Arnold Schwarzenegger & the DMV

When Governor Gray Davis was recalled from office and the steroid fueled characteture of an action hero ran for Governor, his rallying cry was repeal the car tax because when Gray Davis repealed the discount - during a bust cycle - he was villified for it.

Well first off it wasn't a car tax, it was a discount on our annual registration fees that had been granted to the people of California because the state had so much funds, they didn't need it. But the law required the discount to be repealed when the budget wasn't so fat.

Well guess what, in typical California boom and bust cycles, we've gone bust again this year and the discount has been repealed. Last year I paid $48 to register my 1956 van that I bought in 1997 for $300, this year the state is charging me $62.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's the right thing to do, but after having to listen to the muscle man campaign on the evils of his predecessor for repealing the discount, I'm amazed this wasn't all over the headline news. In fact, I only found out about it today when I reviewed my Vehicle Registration Renewal Notice.

Talk about a double standard. Does this mean it's time to recall Schwarzenegger? Some people think so. Apparently the California State Prision Guard's Union submitted a petition calling for the man's recall - unfortunately, the state rejected it for not meeting the legal requirements. But's it's not only prision guards who are mad at Arnie, apparently his approval rating is just above that of GW, and the president of the California Republican Assembly refered to him as a complete failure according to the Houston Chronicle in today's paper.

I guess that's what happens when people elect a movie star for high office. I personally want smart people running things. People who are smarter than I am - a whole lot smarter than I am. Since when did being smart disqualifying a person from holding elected office?

What I want to know about the candidates

I contacted three presidential campaigns today with the following question:

Where do you stand on medical marijuana, assisted suicide and the ability of states to set stronger emission control standards than the federal government requires?