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 | The Other Big Earthquake
While the world focuses on Haiti, relief workers are still salvaging materials and building shelters for the survivors of West Sumatra's back to back 7.9 and 7.0 earthquakes of last fall, which affected 1,250,000 people, and killed or injured several thousand. Two hospitals and many schools crumbled, and 279,000 homes were damaged. Hands On Disaster Relief has extended Project Sungai Geringging until April, and I'm on my way there to help.
Why Sumatra, and why now? Well, as you may know, I spent the last part of 2009 pushing to finish the 4th and final draft of Ordinary Stories of Magic, Adventure, and Chocolate. Three days before the New Year, I finished the 3-year+ long project and now I'm free to refocus my energy in other places. Humanitarian work, activism, travel, and writing (and my friends!) are generally what inspire me to get out of bed in the morning, and having lost my own home in the 1993 Northridge quake, I feel especially moved when I see the photos of people in front of the remains of their homes. I remember the huge difference that community support and aid made in my life when I was the one left homeless. So, since I definitely want to get out from behind this computer for a bit, and since there's a glut of people itching to go to Haiti, I decided on Project Sungai Geringging. |
 | Ordinary Stories of Magic, Adventure, and Chocolate
Four years after I hoisted my plastered, broken toe onto a footrest somewhere in the former Soviet republic of Moldova and started writing Ordinary Stories of Magic, Adventure, and Chocolate, it's finally done! Here's a blurb that might end up on the back cover:
Beginning with a broken toe in Moldova, Ordinary Stories of Magic, Adventure, and Chocolate retraces a personal journey through urban squats of Western Europe, Central American countryside, an Alaskan winter without electricity or indoor plumbing, the streets of Istanbul and Southern India, across Bosnia, Serbia and Romania on a bicycle, and eventually into the political countercurrents of Venezuela, Uruguay, Cuba and Colombia.
More than a travel memoir, this collection of true stories relentlessly pushes at the edges of cultural boundaries, while tracing a path of personal evolution through activism, love, loss, birth, death, politics, and exploration of the ever-evolving mysteries of life. It is a tale of what is possible when a young woman insists on staring down her fears, keeping magic as a travel companion, and sampling all the chocolate along the way.
Ordinary Stories of Magic, Adventure, and Chocolate is a playful, personal story that pokes at politics and cultural differences, but focuses on our ultimate interconnectedness, and seeks to offer a reminder of the magic that is always around us, the ordinary magic we tend to overlook, the mysteries we get too busy to ponder. And in that ubiquitous magic we may just find reason to live with more trust and compassion, with less fear, and with more openness to the infinite possibility of life. We may find that we are capable of much more than we realize. |
 | Battle for Our History
If you'd told me nine years ago that shutting down the WTO and downtown Seattle, getting tear-gassed, beaten and arrested, and organizing a grand "fuck off" to the dominant institutions of global capital would one day lead to activists partying in a luxury suite at the Westin San Francisco after watching a Hollywood star-studded major motion picture depicting the protests, I'd have told you that you were on drugs. But I guess this is yet another case of reality being stranger than I could have imagined.
On Sept. 19 we all headed downtown for the SF debut of Stuart Townsend's new release "Battle in Seattle" to watch Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron and a bunch of others play basically, well, us, sort of. They used a lot of real footage, creating a bizarre dichotomy between the film seeming realistic, yet at the same time utterly inaccurate in many ways. Happily, it wasn't so inaccurate with the issues. The director obviously had good intentions, and all in all, I'm glad the movie's out there. But if we're not careful, the movie could be what sticks in people's minds as what actually happened in Seattle. Already the mainstream media has painted Seattle as something dramatically different than what it was, rewriting history from its own interests and perspectives. Hopefully the film may inspire people to seek out the true stories, which are being compiled in a people's history website, http://realbattleinseattle.org/, and may be compiled in a book next year. I wrote up an essay for the project, called Learning To Sing, about my experience there, and I hope many others who were there will also contribute. |
 | The Kamagasaki Patrol: What the G8 Means on the Street
Ten years ago, a homeless man in Osaka, Japan, was collecting recycling by the river when he was assaulted and thrown in the water, where he drowned. The homeless community was outraged and called meetings to decide what could be done to ensure the safety of their community. They decided to address the issue collectively and autonomously, since the police were not supporting them. This was the beginning of the Kamagasaki Patrol.
In recent months the Patrol has been focused in three main areas of work: 1) patrolling the neighborhoods for safety and coordinating weekly communal meals; 2) organizing with the precarious workers' unions for workers' rights, and helping community members find jobs; and 3) engaging in anti-G8 organizing. But several weeks ago their efforts were derailed. |
 | G8 Dispatches: What Does Nike Have to do with Tokyo's Homeless?
Like many other foreigners, we arrived in Tokyo holding stereotypes of Japan as a prosperous country, not one where tens of thousands of people live in the streets. Surprised by the visible poverty and homelessness we saw hidden behind the neat commercial glitter, we realized our assumptions were wrong. The next question was how to write about the issues of homelessness and displacement with relation to the policies of the G8 and international financial institutions. Last night the answer to this question appeared. |
 | Elections? Again?
For someone who hates getting involved in electoral politics, I sure end up doing it a lot. I especially hate it in instances like this, when instead of fighting to make things better, we have to spend our time and energy working to hold on to what we already have. But yet again, the assholes with money have put an initiative on the ballot that would make a big mess for everyone but them. So I’ve been spending my free time making flyers and running around begging people to vote no on California Proposition 98.
We’re also planning a Reclaim The Streets (RTS) action on May 31 to draw attention to the issue, which should be lots of fun. We’re meeting at Dolores Park at 1:30 pm then parading off unpermitted from there with music and festivities. |
| Featured Project
Can you believe the five year anniversary of the war in Iraq is coming up already in March? On the bright side, resistance to the war is only growing, and Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW), the folks who brought you the SF shutdown 5 years ago, are back with plans for March 15 and 19. |
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