The hidden poor

On a thread a while back a woman spoke about never seeing poverty in the U.S. as bad as what she saw in Mexico. I and lots of other people spoke about how poverty is hidden in the U.S. by zoning laws, police and the prison system.

Here's a story from the LA Times about a particular hidden community:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-trailerpark26mar26,0,3370103.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel

The Southland's hidden Third World slums

In the Coachella Valley, hundreds of trailer parks house desperately poor Latino workers amid burning trash, mud, contaminated water.

By David Kelly
Times Staff Writer

March 26, 2007

THERMAL, CALIF. — Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms.

Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty.

Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. "My mom makes frijoles," he said, "then I take a bath in that water."

Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like a shabby necklace across the eastern Coachella Valley.

Out here — just a few miles from world-class golf resorts, private hunting clubs and polo fields — half-naked children toddle barefoot through mud and filth while packs of feral dogs prowl piles of garbage nearby.

Thick smoke from mountains of burning trash drifts through broken windows. People — sometimes 30 or more — are crammed into trailers with no heat, no air-conditioning, undrinkable water, flickering power and plumbing that breaks down for weeks or months at a time.

"I was speechless," said Haider Quintero, a Colombian training for the priesthood who recently visited the parks as part of his studies. "I never expected to see this in America."

Riverside County officials say there are between 100 and 200 illegal trailer parks in the valley, but the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition says the number could be as high as 500.

California Rural Legal Assistance says as few as 20 parks are legal, and they are often as dilapidated as the illegal ones. When county inspectors locate a park without permits, they prefer to let owners bring the place into compliance through loan and grant programs rather than evict the tenants.

Some of the largest and poorest parks are on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation where they are not subject to local zoning laws and the county can't monitor safety, hygiene and building standards. The reservation is also home to the worst illegal dumps of any tribe in California, Arizona or Nevada, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The federal agency has closed 10 of the 20 most toxic dumps and cited four of the largest trailer parks for health violations.

Despite the conditions, park owners say they are providing a vital service in an area where housing prices have soared.

"Before the parks, they were living in their cars, in the desert and bathing in the canals. Five guys would pay 50 bucks a month to share a camper shell," said Scott Lawson, a tribal member and co-owner of the Oasis park on the reservation. "Nobody cared when they lived like that, only when they moved into trailers. You can't expect the poorest to live like the wealthiest. They feel comfortable here; it's like being back in Mexico. They tell me that."

Lawson's 300-trailer park has been cited by the EPA for clean-water violations and was recently ordered to stop pumping raw sewage into the nearby Salton Sea.

"We had some citations about water but it's because we didn't know how to test it," he said. "I'm not ashamed of my place. There are a lot worse places than mine."

Exactly how many people live in the trailer parks is unknown, but social workers estimate tens of thousands. The biggest park, Desert Mobile Home Park, or "Duroville," has more than 4,000 residents and can be seen off California 195 near Thermal. Others are on private property and virtually invisible to passing motorists.

The tenants are almost entirely Latino farm or construction workers. Many are in the United States legally, but plenty are not. Their average income, according to county officials, is about $10,000 a year. Many parents rent out their children's rooms for extra money, leaving kids to sleep on floors or in sheds. Many families keep warm by burning grape stakes, which fill their trailers with toxic fumes.

In one nameless park on the reservation off Avenue 70 in Thermal, trailers with broken windows and unhinged doors sit against piles of trash. Box springs, tires, car parts are stacked 10 feet high. Sewage runs behind the trailers, and wild dogs yap and howl.

"This place has some of the worst conditions I have seen," said Sister Gabriella Williams, who does community outreach in the parks and is raising money to build a learning center for residents. "And it's actually gotten worse since I last saw it."

She picked her way through a yard that doubled as a trash heap.

"The park owners have to look into their own conscience as to why they run these kinds of places with these kind of conditions," she said. "They wouldn't want this in their backyard. They wouldn't tolerate it. We all need to recognize the dignity in each other."

Former resident Conrrada Valenzuela said she went three months without electricity, living by candlelight.

Maria Renosa, 35, from Guatemala, lives in the park now. She makes $7.25 an hour picking broccoli and shares a battered, sparsely furnished trailer with six other adults and her children, Edith, 2, and Frank, 3.

Renosa's husband was recently deported for being undocumented. "It would cost him $5,000 to return," she said. "I am not going back. What am I going to do there? I'd love to live somewhere else, but here it only costs $360 a month."

The EPA has cited park owner Robin Lawson for clean-water violations; Lawson could not be reached for comment. He is Scott Lawson's brother. Another brother, Kim, operated a vast, illegal dump for more than a decade that was shut down last year by a federal judge.

The presence of the parks on the reservation has frustrated Torres Martinez Tribal Chairman Raymond Torres.

"The owners started off with good intentions, then I think it overwhelmed them," he said. "I have a real problem with it. Someone is going to get hurt. I'd like to see the parks gone and the owners start over again."

But in the complex world of tribal sovereignty, Torres cannot close the parks; only the Bureau of Indian Affairs can. The bureau said last week that parks on the reservation are illegal because they do not issue bureau-approved leases to tenants. They are now threatening legal action against Duroville and said other parks could be next.

Trailer parks began springing up on Indian land largely because of a county crackdown. In 1998, after several fatal accidents caused by faulty wiring, Riverside County began closing parks that did not have permits and threatening to sue others not up to code. Faced with outrage from farmworker advocates and the Roman Catholic Church, who feared thousands could be rendered homeless, officials backed off, but not before many panicked park dwellers had moved onto the reservation.

"We wish we could wave a magic wand and make them go away," said County Supervisor Roy Wilson. "But we can't."

Adding to the misery is Kim Lawson's dump. Since 1992, it has burned paint cans, car batteries, plastic pipe and treated wood and other waste, throwing so many toxins into the air and soil that EPA said the dump represented an "endangerment [that] can be considered imminent and increasing over time."

And the dump, its smoke blowing for miles up and down the valley, sits right beside Duroville. A 2003 EPA memo reported some areas of the dump contained levels of dioxin 20 times the national average. Dioxin, a carcinogen, is one of the deadliest manufactured substances.

According to agency documents, soil samples revealed dioxin, PCBs and asbestos in Duroville itself. Citing the risks of cancer and other illnesses, the EPA urged the dump's immediate closure. The park remained open because the danger to it was not deemed "imminent," said agency attorney Letitia Moore.

Four years after the EPA recommendation, a federal judge in Riverside closed the dump in August. On Thursday, the judge ordered Lawson to pay $46.9 million to help clean up the mess. Since the facility was padlocked, there have been 20 fires — most the result of spontaneous combustion, said Ray Paiz, battalion chief with the Riverside County Fire Department. One fire in November nearly forced the evacuation of Duroville and nearby schools.

Smoke in the parks is as common as wild dogs and swirling dust. Health workers report that children suffer high levels of pulmonary illnesses, coughs, infections and skin rashes.

"These are almost Third World conditions," said Rosa Lucas, a nurse who runs the Oasis Clinic, across the road from a trailer park. "It's unbearable out there when there is burning. You literally can't go outside."

Although poverty is endemic in the parks, nothing rivals Duroville for sheer blight.

The 40-acre park is a grim, colorless warren of dirt roads with more than 300 trailers tightly packed inside. It's often hard to tell an abandoned scrap heap from a home. There are start-up businesses — car dealerships, a small taco stand and a restaurant specializing in Michoacan food — squeezed in amid the clutter. Trash blows here and there. Toddlers, some naked from the waist down, wander around in fetid muck. A wall surrounds part of the place, a thin barrier separating it from the dump.

What began as occupants of a few trailers seeking refuge from the county has turned into a vast slum bearing streets named after members of park owner Harvey Duro's family. Duro declined to comment for this article.

Efforts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to close Duroville fizzled in 2003 when the owner agreed to make basic electrical and sewage improvements. Still, officials said, he has failed to provide tenants bureau-approved leases defining minimum living standards.

"He will have to come up with an approved lease or we will shut him down," said James Fletcher, the bureau's superintendent for Southern California.

Fletcher said all the parks on Indian land could be closed if they don't provide leases. "If that happens, where do the people go?" he asked. "I don't know."

Duroville is a bastion of poverty divided between the poor and the desperately poor. Among the most destitute are the Purepecha, an indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacan who speak neither Spanish nor English but their own language, Purepechan. They are often mocked by other Latinos who consider them backward.

In their culture, girls often marry young and drop out of school to have children.

Anjelica Serrano, a Purepechan, watched her children play in the dirt. "I got married at 15," she said through an interpreter, "and have five children."

She is 24.

At night, the dark streets come alive with thumping rap and mariachi music pouring from cars. Ice cream vendors work the narrow streets. Because there are no sidewalks, pedestrians keep a wary eye on traffic. Men gather in front of trailers, some drinking themselves into oblivion. Others have hard stares and watchful eyes. Residents say drug dealing is rife.

Theresa Argueta, 42, would leave if she could afford to. She lives in a two-bedroom trailer with her husband and eight children. The four boys sleep in the living room, the four girls in a tiny bedroom. Inside, the trailer is festooned with rosaries and statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"The smoke has affected my children's health," she said. "When the smoke comes, they get bloody noses and have difficulty breathing."

On the other side of the park, Cesar Rafael, 17, a Purepechan, lives in his parents' trailer. He and several other students at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal made a short video about their world, "The Contaminated Valley," which was shown at school.

"I wanted people to see another side of life," he said. "Everything is poisonous here, even the water is poisonous. And nobody really cares about it. We are invisible."

david.kelly@latimes.com

The video is available at the link above, but only for a couople of weeks, so click on it soon!

Last one to view it?

I've never tried embedding a video before. Wish me luck!

I want this little girl on my team. She tells us what she's gonna do to a monster!


What Are you Gonna Do To The Monster - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Missed it

60 Minutes had an interview by Katie Couric with John and Elizabeth Edwards last night. A good friend who is a cancer survivor sent me a copy of a letter she fired off immediately after the broadcast. If you saw the broadcast and agree, please write a letter as well. Talk about missed opportunities!

TO: The Producers of "60 Minutes"

What a disappointing interview!!

Instead of asking both Elizabeth and Senator Edwards (since they are a team) how Elizabeth's cancer has affected their thoughts on the health care system in this country and to explain his political program on that issue, Katie wasted the entire interview time concentrating on the things that both Edwards obviously want and have to accept and adjust to and then -- equally important -- they want to move forward with their lives. Katie wouldn't let that happen.

I saw their announcement on CNN Thursday and that was much more informative both as to Elizabeth's cancer and John's campaign plans.

One of the reasons I watched "60 Minutes" tonight was that because I knew Katie had dealt with the death of her husband from colon cancer and yet went on to raise her -- then -- young girls and also to continue with her career. For some reason I thought she would give a good interview based on her own experience. Obviously, I was wrong!!!!

To Katie Couric: How irresponsible of you, Katie, for playing on the fears of many out there who may have seen your interview with the Edwards tonight. It would have been better if "60 Minutes" had asked Betty Ford to conduct the interview. She was an inspiration to women years ago and saved many lives because of her encouraging women to have regular mammograms. Elizabeth and John Edwards have taken that contribution one step further only you didn't understand.

Watch this

From Mad TV on Youtube.

Oh crap

I wish Queer Dewd, formerly known as Prince, I mean, Bitch|Lab, weren't up to her eyeballs in a new job and moving, because she would understand this completely.

One of the things about being a graphic artist is that you do a ton of crappy advertising meant to sell cheap plastic shit to people who don't need it because you need a job to pay the bills.

BUT, you can, if you choose, use your skills for politically important work. I've been doing that for years.

On occasion, however, my efforts can be sabotaged when a "client" -- i.e., an important, valuable cause, -- is represented by people who have ... um ... let's call it shit for brains. Sometimes those ShitForBrain people screw up royally. If they reach the professional level of ShitForBrain-hood, the next step is to try to blame their fuck-ups on the graphic artist. That would be me.

That happened to me last night. I'm still pissed about it.

I agreed to help out an organization by putting together a booklet of ads from people who support the cause. I was not selling the advertising. I was not contacting the groups. I was not designing the ads. I was simply putting together the book: laying out the ads and making them pretty and printable.

Last week I got about half the ads. Some were 8.5x11 inch fliers that I was supposed to condense into a 3x4 inch ad. Some of them were scraps of paper or printed ads torn out of a newspaper or magazine.

Well, call me chump ("Chump!"). I went ahead and accepted the crap, fixed it up, did some research, found some art I could use, etc. Fact is, I did hundreds of dollars worth of design work I had not agreed to do.

In addition, I gave the client a list of ads for which I had received no art or copy.

I hear nothing all last week. I hear nothing over the weekend. I hear nothing on Monday.

Monday evening I get a phone call from the director of the organization asking where the hell were all the ads and why was I making everything late.

Now the director is a woman who happens to be a friend. She is someone I respect and admire. And yet she somehow believes it when shitforbrains tells her I'm the one who dropped the ball.

As far as I can tell, shitforbrains decided that it was my responsibility to create from whole cloth any ads that were not delivered to me last week. Which I wouldn't have done even if it had been suggested. But it wasn't suggested. It was somehow assumed. Now why the fuck would anyone assume that?

Is it because I was a chump and went ahead and made ads from the damn scraps of paper that were sent to me last week? Did I convince them somehow that I could create art out of nothing?

But even so, if they seriously thought that was what I was doing, why did NOBODY call me? Why did NOBODY respond to my e-mail?

What really made me angry was the fact that this person who decided that I was supposed to create these ads and then decided that I was lazy in not producing said ads, did not call me or write me directly.

Instead, he chose to go behind my back to my friend, the director, and ask her to leave a rude fucking message on my phone machine.

Screw this. I'm outta there.

10:30 pm - editing to remove all those nasty typos that I create when I'm PWA (posting while angry)

SUCCESS!



Thousands of Minneapolis protesters march against Iraq war

Organizers estimated about 4,000 people participated in the antiwar march that began in the Uptown area, continued north on Hennepin Avenue and ended at Loring Park. Police did not respond to a request for a crowd estimate.

They marched, organizers said, to urge President Bush to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq

Metro protests against the war in Iraq

Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. People on both sides of the issue took to the streets of Minneapolis with a message to Congress.

From Washington to New York City to right here in the Twin Cities, across the country was protestors walked the streets Sunday.

Five questions meme

via Belledame

Here's the deal:

Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate!

You WILL update your journal/bloggy thing/whatever with the answers to the questions.

You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.

When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

So, here were my five:

1) What's your (a) secret vice?

I'm not very secretive about my vices. Buying books I don't get around to reading. Red wine, Romantic movies.

2) Aside from ravens, are there animals you feel closely connected to? (if so, what?)

Cats, dogs, Jersey cows (they have beautiful eyes!).

3) How do you feel about: "religion is the opiate of the masses"?

Yup. Spirituality, on the other hand, is more like chocolate or caffeine.

4) What's the best way to stay warm when it's 25 below?

You don't. But layers can help you survive.

5) What did you have for dinner tonight?

Vegetarian spaghetti and garlic bread.

OK, any takers?

Serendipity on the Internet

Brownfemipower is writing a series on Radical Women of Color Theorists that began with Lee Maracle. BFP is helping us learn there are more than just two (Audre Lorde, bell hooks) radical women of color theorists in the world.

Intrigued, I googled Maracle and found an article in Trivia magazine called "The Lost Days of Columbus". Great quote:

Columbus came from a “throwaway” world. A “get rid of them” culture. We don't.

I'm unfamiliar with Trivia: Voices of Feminism magazine. So I clicked on current issue and found a wonderful poem by my favorite writer, Marge Piercy, called "Blue Mojo". This is a poem Piercy wrote for her friend, Audre Lorde.

Here's a portion:

We were Amazon raiders dusty from battle,
feisty, thumping, hope riding
our shoulders like a screeching parrot.

After you lost your first breast
you joked that now you were a true
Amazon. You were always true.

Writing by or about Lee Maracle that I found on the internet:

I am Native. I am Woman. I am.
Article from the McGill Daily

Some Words on Study As a Process of Discovery
Coming to know is connected to and a result of the process of seeing, thinking and considering phenomena, subject or text and either challenging and either believing or transforming that phenomena, subject or text, based on your particular culture of origin.

The Lost Days of Columbus
"I return Christopher to those who would adore him. I give him back to those who cling stubbornly to throwaway ways."

Playing with the layout

Tonight I started playing around in the new blogger tools. Since I don't have the choice anymore to stay with the old blogger, I might as well play with the new one.

Something about myself: I am a "dragged-kicking-and-screaming" adapter. I bought a CD player last year because I figured they were finally catching on. This year we bought a TV with a built-in DVD player so we could try out that new technology. The thing tanked after a couple of months, but it was fun while it lasted.

Being forced to upgrade in Blogger was a trauma I managed to survive.

About 10 years ago I watched an amazing exodus of skilled workers: printers and pressmen, become extinct as technology raced past them. I figured typesetters were next, but a few of us survive.

I'm all about print and I get it. I know what works and what doesn't on the printed page. I can kern a document within an inch of its life. I can make type sing off the page. I can make it invisible so that thoughts flow directly from the page directly nto your consciousness with no distractions or side trips.

So it's bizarre to be communicating in pixels. HTML coding is not that different from traditional cold type. I know I could learn it if I put in the effort.

But, you know, I bought a CD player last year because I believed they were catching on. I bought a DVD player this year.

Sami makes it to Metafilter.



By good friend, Sami Rasouli is mentioned in a post on yesterday's metafilter. There are tons of links there, but I especially wanted to note this article that was in the Minneapolis paper this week:

Doug Grow:

Sami Rasouli, back from Iraq, says U.S. is impeding peace

By Doug Grow, Star Tribune
Last update: March 12, 2007 – 10:42 PM

Sometimes in this troubled world, even peacemakers smile.

Sami Rasouli, the former restaurateur who gave up a comfortable life in Minneapolis to return to his native Iraq three years ago, laughs when he thinks about the recent trip Gov. Tim Pawlenty made to Iraq and Afghanistan

"I would love to talk to him," Rasouli said. "I'll ask him, 'So tell me, what's going on in Iraq?' I will ask him, 'Did you meet any Iraqis?' And then I will invite him to stay with me the next time he comes. I'll tell him, 'I'm an embedded son of Minnesota. Come visit. You might see some different things than you've seen before.' "

Rasouli, 56, doesn't expect he'll hear from the governor anytime soon. Few U.S. officials have been knocking at his door in Najaf, the city where he has established his organization, Muslim Peacemaker Teams.

They haven't been attending the sessions he's holding at schools and in churches since returning to the United States on Feb. 27, either.

U.S. officials just don't seem interested in hearing an ex-restaurant guy tell them there can be no peace in Iraq until U.S. troops are out of the country.

But Rasouli does sound pretty rational.

"Occupation and democracy do not fit together," he says to anyone who will listen.

This is Rasouli's third trip back to the Twin Cities since November 2004, when he decided to sell his popular Nicollet Avenue restaurant, Sinbad's, and return to the country of his birth.

Rasouli's goal -- here and there -- is to build bridges among people of all religious backgrounds with the message, "One God, one people."

It seems like a good message, but it has been a tough sell.

Over the three years he has been in Iraq, he has seen violence increase, friends assassinated and living conditions deteriorate. Distrust reigns.

Given these realities, was it a mistake to give up "Eat Street" for Iraq? After all, even this man on a peace quest still loves dining at Sinbad's.

"Oh no, no, it was not a mistake," he said.

Where's the hope?

"Human beings always have evolved to something better," he said. "It is the war that is delaying the process of evolution."

Repeatedly he says it's U.S. policy that's creating the continuing deterioration.

This is the second time I've met with Rasouli on one of his return trips. Both times I've tried to put myself in his shoes. Both times I've failed.

I can't imagine going back to something that seems so futile. But in both conversations he insisted that it's a greater shock to return to the Twin Cities than it is to return to Iraq.

"It truly is more heartbreaking to come here," he said. "Sometimes I actually break down when I see the food, or use the electricity. It just reminds me of what the people don't have."

So, late this spring, he'll go back. "Maybe on his next trip, the governor will look me up," the peacemaker said, smiling.

Doug Grow • dgrow@startribune.com

A Plea



This weekend marks the 4th anniversary of the U.S. military war against Iraq. A lot of us will be out in the streets saying this war must end.

YOU CAN BE A PART OF IT

Click for ANSWER Coalition information about the large marches in DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Click to find an event in your area.

Thanks to My Private Casbah

Sacrifices

First, a little background:

BelleDame has a pretty good round-up of a recent dust-up in the blogosphere centered on the comments of two white women who had married black men and have referred to themselves as Race Traitors.

Their version should not be mixed up with Race Traitor, the anti-racist journal and book by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey. These women are talking about the term as used by racists.

One of the women has repeatedly said that her marriage to a black man was a political decision. That confused me. How I vote is a political decision, how I act in my community is a political decision. How I act in regard to my loved ones and family is different. In a rather controversial post at ChasingMoksha's blog, Heart explains her viewpoint:

The lies and distortions are also cruel, like suggesting I married my husbands for political reasons only or whatever stupid bullshit. I married my husbands for love. I left the world of white privilege because of my politics. Part of leaving that world was not marrying white. Part of leaving that world was being rejected by my extended family. Part of leaving that world was becoming poor. Part of leaving that world was bearing and raising biracial children, nine of them, over 36 years now, with all that has meant over the years. I could have set my sights on moving upward, upward, upward through the echelons of privilege available to white middle class women, until I hit the layer-of-men ceiling. I could have stayed in the sorority my parents forced me to pledge to when I went away to school (because I went to school at 16, in the 60s, and they feared for me in the dorms). I left the sorority after my freshman year, couldn't stand the place. I could have gotten serious about, and married, one of the many white frat boys I had to drag along to sorority functions that freshman year (which was a year I had sworn off of men completely so I could attend to my studies and plus, I was sick of men. Some things never change. :P) If I'd done my folks' plan, that is, stay in the sorority, making those all-important connections, marry a frat boy and enlarge that circle of connections, become a professional, married to a professional, then I'd have been solidly ensconced in white privilege, American style. I didn't want that. I said fuck that. I was a pacifist. I was an anti-racist, involved in the Civil Rights movement. This was the 60s and all of us who were activists hated the "Establishment". I wanted to participate in the political revolution that was going on on my campus and in my city, and that's what I did, and I never turned back, even during my fundie years, during which I was still a pacifist, still anti-war, still not patriotic, still interracially married, involved in all sorts of various alternative movements. So anyway, what I did was, I chose my male partners from amongst the political radicals with whom I was engaged in political work, and when, as it so happened, I fell in love with my first ex, I said, hell yeah. I did not skip a beat for fear of losing all my race or class privilege or for what might happen to me, or whatever. Of course, as it turned out, the worst things that happened to me happened to me at the hands of my ex! Which is another story for another time. And which doesn't change how much I loved him, or my second ex. Why are people such idiots, those talking about this? I have to believe they are deliberately being idiots out of cruelty. That men have abused us (generic "us" meaning women) and even tried to kill us doesn't change the love we have had for them or the way our lives intertwine from that point forward. That's the horror and betrayal of abuse, that the men we have loved and trusted more than any other men have battered us, tried to kill us. Even when we leave them behind, usually, we still love them. Maybe we always love them. That's the way that goes down. Anyway, so yes, I consciously, deliberately, married my exes, once I'd fallen madly in love with them, and then had to consider my future. I didn't do what lots of women, and men, would do, say, "No, I can't marry this person, my parents will freak out and disinherit me and disown me." "No, I can't marry this person, it just isn't done." "No, I can't marry this person, it will be too hard on the children." "No, I won't marry this person, he is too poor, he's had too hard of a life, we are too different, our cultures, backgrounds are too different, we will have too many problems." "No, I won't marry this person, his family won't like it." "No, I won't marry this person, he'll get kicked out of the Panthers and he won't be able to go to BSU meetings." "No, I won't marry this person because racists will treat us like shit." I said, "Yes, I'll marry this man whom I love because I love him, and I don't give a shit what anybody says or thinks about that, because the reasons people give for their opposition are RACIST, and my marrying him might make things easier for the next couple like us." Which is POLITICAL. I have to wonder if people understand what "political" even means, you know? That a decision is "political" doesn't change the fact that it is still made because of LOVE. Which kind of gets at something I've wanted to write about for a long time, actually, the heady excitement of revolution-making, the way that falling in love with your "comrades" happens easily, because making revolution in a way that is real is, in fact, to make real, vital, exciting connections, is centered in hopes for a future that is good and hopeful and loving, and that energy spills over into every interaction you have with your co-revolutionaries. So yes, it's political, and yes, it's love, and where one stops and the other begins is not so clearcut for those of us who have experienced this.

When I first read this explanation, I made the following comment at Veronica's thread titled White Lady Pity Party:

Over on CM’s blog (link above), Heart has further explained her “political reasons” for marrying black men.

It’s breathtaking. I honestly don’t believe I’ve met anyone more clueless about her privilege.

It’s breathtaking. I’m speechless.

I literally couldn't comment then because what Heart talked about: her experiences and her decisions, refer to the kind of life that could only have been lived by a tiny, tiny portion of extremely privileged white people in 1960s America. It immediately brought to mind the film Born Rich, a documentary film by Jamie Johnson. If you haven't seen it, you really should. Here's a brief intro:

First-time filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 23-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, captures the rituals, worries and social customs of the young Trumps, Vanderbilts, Newhouses and Bloombergs in the documentary special, BORN RICH, a 2003 Sundance Film Festival selection. Offering candid insights into the privileges and burdens of inheriting more money than most people will earn in a lifetime.

I'm not claiming that Heart was obnoxiously wealthy, as the people in this film are. I am claiming that she existed in an extremely narrow world in which acts like not pledging a sorority or marrying outside your own race are seen as courageous acts of rebellion. Heart wrote: "I left the world of white privilege because of my politics." She lost her chance at a corporate career, she lost her space in a sorority, she lost her chance at a professional husband.

What the rest of us realize, is that 97 percent of the U.S. population never had a chance at that. And those of us in that 97 percent who were white and never had to make those tough decisions about which wonderful future to give up, were still making out like bandits compared to people of color. We got the nice houses, the nice services, the presumption of innocence, the helping hand of neighbors and strangers.

We could barely get arrested: I know that for a fact. My father was a major conman, a grifter, a charmer. He broke the law and lay waste to family and friends for decades and nobody said boo. None of which would have happened if his skin had been a different color.

I can see that, in Heart's world, she had to pass up a lot of goodies. Having to live a life lilke mine must have seemed hugely difficult. So, perhaps she can convince herself that the privilege is gone. Perhaps the subtleties of racism are too hard for her to see.

Especially if she chooses not to look at them. And you, know, that's one of the bestest things about being white. You can choose to ignore it altogether if you want. Heart become quite the expert in not noticing.

Newspaper ad

We're putting an ad into the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder so I threw this together. Getting the word out!

Oops!

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 2, 2007
Filed at 11:13 p.m. ET

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

''We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem,'' Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. ''It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something,'' he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Adding the endorsers

So you've got your nice layout and your pretty flyer. A month later, somebody decides to add a ton of copy. Hello mice type! Squeak squeak squeak!

En espanol

Just got the Spanish translation for our March 18 flyer:



If you're in the Twin Cities, try to make it to the Immigrants Rights march today at 2 pm! You can see the flyer here.

The Art of Misdirection

Magicians use intricate hand movements to misdirect our attention from the hand that carries the "disappearing" coin or card. We white feminists have a similar trick to make sure that political discussion focuses on us. Here's a classic example:

In a post at TPM, Jessica Valenti mentions the behavior of a sorority at DePauw University that decided to kick out fat women and women of color from their group because they were "socially awkward" and were deemed unable to recruit new members.

This is a story of women from traditionally underprivileged groups making it past the many barriers to social progress and entering into a particular elite society: sororities on college campuses.Yet all that money and educational privilege does not protect them from the raw discrimination that the rest of us get to experience more frequently.

What can we learn from this and where should we turn to learn more?

Well, you could look to women of color who have been talking about this for years. You could look at women who deal with body issues. You could cite activist groups of young women who are making a difference.

Or you could just chuck all that and use this incident to focus on the pain of your white, middle class twit-like self. Which is exactly what Jessica chooses to do. And she specifically implicates her "feminist and blogging peers" in her effort to turn this important discussion into a rant about the needs of white privileged women.

What are the horrors faced by these women? I'll tell you, but first I believe I should post one of those disclaimers you see before TV shows:

the following may be inappropriate for some viewers. Boys and girls, prepare yourself for the horror and pain that is the life of Jessica and her peers:

Are you ready? Deep breath, now. Here goes:

"Being told you're too young to speak on a panel (this happened to someone I know at the 2005 NOW conference); being lectured about how your opinions are naïve or misinformed ("you weren't there!); being relegated to the "young feminist" table or forum at major conferences, having your accomplishments looked on warily because you didn't "pay your dues," getting emails about how all of your hard-working feminist blogging is for naught because your logo is sexist (cough, cough)."

The horror. The horror.

There you have it: the pain of racism is comparable to having to sit at the "kids table" at your family's holiday dinner.

As an older feminist, I should probably take umbrage that Valenti is using the worst sort of psychobabble to explain our failure to admire her and her peers. Katha Pollitt actually takes the bait in her response.

And that makes the circle complete. Misdirection accomplished. When racism and body issues are involved, all it takes is two white women focusing on their own issues to divert the discussion onto the problems faced by white women.

I'm hoping for something better this time. I'm hoping that readers of Valenti's post will also see the awesome reponses being posted by kick-ass women who call bullshit on this nonsense.

Go, read, and learn (be sure to read the comments as well):

Women of Color

Brownfemipower

Black Amazon

Renegade Evolution

Women writing on the body

Trinity

The Gimp Parade

New Addiction

This Geogrpahy Quiz is the kind of test my mother, the professor of geography, despised. So of course I had to send her the link. It has wasted a major part of my time recently.

Posting Problem

The new blogger now makes it impossible for me to post from home. Bummer. There's been a lot of interesting stuff to link plus I turned 51 yesterday. So wish me a happy birthday and I'll get back in the swing of things once I figure out what Blogger has done to my home computer.

Nine Inches!

That's how much snow we got last weekend. Pretty stuff! Lots to shovel. Took us a couple of hours to dig the car out. The blows made it through only one time. Today they've cleared the streets and will plow again. Which will be digger another path from the driveway. It's finally Minnesota again!

Cool video

Found via metafilter, a performance by an a capella R&B group called Naturally 7 on the Metro in Paris.

o.m.g.

Some things are just too vacuous to believe.

I'm sure the reporter pulled out the worst possible quotes to slant his story in the New York Observer. Even so, these are really bad!

Bungalowing Iraq
By George Gurley

It was after midnight last Saturday, and Bungalow 8 was filling up. I wanted to ask the famously exclusive nightclub’s regular patrons their thoughts about Iraq.

John Flanagan, a 40-year-old nightlife impresario, was sitting with a large group drinking $350 bottles of vodka.

“I’m upset for the American lives that are lost, and the Iraqi lives,” he said. “It makes me feel confused about the direction we’ve taken and whether it was for the right cause.”

He referred to the war as an “unpleasantry of life.”

-----

Read more at the link. If you dare.

The Real Minnesota

Catching up post:

Windchill is at 25 below today. I'm hiding out at home. I took the day off to attend an out-of-town funeral but I've decided to not chance the trip under these conditions. My car is just not the reliable. The funeral is of a high school buddy who died at 52 years old of an unexpected heart attack last weekend. I'm getting to the age where this sort of thing becomes more common. I'm not gonna like that.

-----

Last Tuesday I helped set up an event for Cindy Sheehan. It was held at a progressive Catholic church and all 1200 seats were sold out ahead of time. I did not plan to stay since I had worked 12 hours and was tired. But we listened to the first 20 minutes or so. Sheehan is an interesting woman. Considering all the crap that's been thrown at her, I feel as if she's handled herself well and avoided many of the pitfalls that people make who become the focus of mainstream media.

She tried to attend one of the local vigils, but at 5 degrees, she lasted only a few minutes. She said, "I think you people are nuts for living in Minnesota in the winter. But then I chose to camp out in a ditch in Texas in August, so I'm not one to talk."

That was the kind of talk she gave: offering her thoughts and ideas in a somewhat self-depracating manner. She was funny but also passionate.

I tend to worry when the media tries to define a mass movement by focussing on one or two people because no one person can encompass the variety of people involved. Sheehan has done a better job than some, and for that I give her props.

------

The discussion over at Little Light's has continued and I just realized it yesterday. I spent a while catching up and I am definitely learning a lot. I'm impressed by commenters like Holly and Piny who are willing to offer their wisdom to people who are ignorant about the lives of transgendered people.

-----

I read the following yesterday and it's been stuck in my mind ever since. I'm not going to cite the source because I'm not welcome there and because it doesn't really matter. Here it is:

"...feminism is about each woman, speaking her own truth. It’s about each of us, giving voice to our own reality, our own lived experiences in the world as women."

No, this is definitely not what I'd call feminism.

Feminism is when women support OTHER women. If I'm focussed on myself, I cannot help other women. In addition, I cannot see how things that occur in the world affect women who are NOT ME.

Count me out of this so-called feminism that means I spend more time on me and less time on the world that is out there fucking with me and other women.

This could be fun!

Found via Wood's Lot is the following new online journal:

Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action

Affinities is a web-based journal that focuses on groups, movements, and communities that set out to construct sustainable alternatives to the racist, hetero-sexist system of liberal-capitalist nation-states. We are interested in questions such as: What kind of experiments are out there, beyond the state and corporate forms? How are they working, what obstacles are they encountering? How do we build lasting culture(s) of resistance and (re-)construction? As one of the goals of Affinities is to acknowledge and strengthen the links that exist between academic, activist, and artistic communities, we are committed to publishing academic and activist writing, as well as other forms of radical cultural production.

Enjoy!

Defying the cold

Nearly 400 Minnesotans defied the 0 degree weather and marched against the war on Saturday. It was unbelievably cold, with clear blue skies letting any heat float away and the winds forcing their way between hats and scarfs to chill us to the bone. And still, 400 people came out to protest the war in Iraq in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the dead of winter.

We arrived at Bethany Lutheran Church on Franklin and 25th in the Seward neighborhood. The minute I went outside I decided I didn't have it in me to stay outside for more than 5 or 10 minutes.

But then I went out and joined the crowd and the people just kept on coming. I had my hand-clicker and started counting at 1:05 and came up with 265 people. Then I talked with friends from the Military Families Speak Out committee and chatted with other activists for a while. At 1:30, I did another count and came up with 365. One activist for every day of the year!

I finally gave up and went back to the church where at least 40 people were trying to get warm. So I believe we're safe in saying that 400 people participated in this latest antiwar event.

At the church, I counted 307 people. The speeches were inspiring, especially Rick's speech for Military Femilies Speak Out. He spoke about a Marine who tried to have himself committed to the VA in St. Cloud for mental health issues. He was told he was No. 26 on the waiting list. So he went over to a friends house and shot himself to death.

Well, you know, just fuck you, America and fuck you VA for doing this to a young man with a caring wife, a 6-month old baby and a life ahead of him. You fuckers stole this young man's life for your crazy imperial fantasies.

Wake up, America. We really can't export our problems overseas. Because our soldiers come home and they bear the scars you've forced them to endure. And another family has to feel the pain of your fucked up ambitions.

Sami returns in March

My friend Sami will be back in Minnesota in march. Here's the flyer I made today for his event.

This Tuesday night

Cindy Sheehan will be in town. I made this flyer quite a while ago. Almost 800 tickets have already been sold for this event.

Say No to War this Weekend

There are over 75 events planned in the U.S. to say no to war and call for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Iraq. You can find the entire list here.

I'll be out with local activists tomorrow beginning at 1 p.m. at Franklin and 26th Ave South in Minneapolis. Come on out and make your voice heard!

These kind of actions are fun for so many reasons. You get to express your anger and outrage. You get to see the amazing creativity of fellow activists as they create and display their own banners.

You can listen to the voices of your neighbors talking about why this war must end at an open-mike session after the rally.

If you can, make an effort to get out and protest this weekend. The troops deserve our support by bringing them home and taking care of them when they return.

March 18 flyer

OK, getting this one ready to hand out at the antiwar demo this weekend. This is loosely based on an idea from the a flyer for the Bay Area. Let me know if the "Q" works.

I am not exempt

I hereby acknowledge I am capable of being a racist, sexist, homophobic , transphobic, classist, ablist, agist shitstain.* I've probably done all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ablist, agist shitstainy things in my life and gotten away with it.

*Please feel free to fill in the prejudices I haven't listed.

I do not exmpt myself from these sins. I admit them, and in my better moments I try to learn from them.

Even so, because I am white, a U.S. citizen and capable of picking up some of the nasty shit that surrounds me, I will probably do something racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ablist, agist and shitstainy in the future. Although I make a concerted effort to avoid it, I'm not going to say it can't happen.

When I do act like a bigot, I hope somebody calls me on it. I hope I can hear that message and learn from it.

I've attended a lot of anti-racist and anti-homophobic training. The issue of power is always discussed. "Racism" is definied as a system that has real power to make life difficult for people of color. By employing and supporting racism through bigotry and hate speech, I could and would make life more difficult for people of color.

People of color do not have access to the power that is white racism. Therefore, the bigotry and hate speech of people of color is not racism. The word racism defines the system.

Bigotry is an illogical hatred for a different group of people. Anyone, including people without power, can participate in bigotry and hate speech. Hate speech has different effects, depending on where one exists on the power spectrum, but it still is logically defined as hate speech and bigotry.

Yesterday, I read a different argument over at Heart's space. This argument equates racism, bigotry and hate speech and says only the powerful can exhibit this behavior.

In this specific instance, the discussion was about hate speech toward transgendered people. Please click on over and read the whole piece, because I don't want to speak for Heart. She explains herself quite logically and doesn't go all academic on the reader, as some of us do.

You can read it here.starting at thread #208 by Heart. Here's a short quote from a follow up:

When a radical feminist female uses insulting words in the direction of transwomen, she understand this to be no different from using insulting words in the direction of males. It might be rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, it might be insulting, but it isn’t hate speech. It’s not discriminatory. Because given power differentials as they exist between males and females, females aren’t situated socially so as to be able to discriminate against males, or to be bigoted towards males or to be phobic against males. To the contrary, our experience as females is that males *are* to be feared because they hurt females and to say so, and behave accordingly, is not “phobic,” it is based on female reality.

I completely disagree with this theory. I believe it to be fundamentally flawed.

First, I believe, as I said above, that all of us are capable of hate speech and bigotry. These are the actions of individuals, not systems, and although they do not reach the level of racism, they still suck and ought to be avoided. By all of us.

Second, and more problematical, is that Heart claims that women have been harmed by men, therefore hate speech and bigotry toward men is merely an accurate description of the way men behave.

Obviously, I agree that men have and continue to harm women in all sorts of ways. I'd be a fool to disagree.

However, bigotry and hate speech is always illogical. It's illogical because we can never accurately define a group of human beings that is exactly one thing or another with no exceptions.

So, again, I am not exempt. And I hope my readers will call me on it when I do fuck up in the future.

I have a different approach

In an argument between a radical feminist and a transgendered woman, Heart wrote the following:

…to be born into the world female is to experience a certain kind of brutality at the hands of men from the moment of one’s birth and in an ongoing way, until we die. All of us born female know this brutality, recognize it, and have made our way against it and in the face of it. It is reflected in women’s art, writings, medicine, spirituality, specific traditions and practices, herstory, stories. It is evident in the way we encounter one another and in the way we encounter men and society just in general. Whatever women have created, whatever ways women have been in the world, have made for ourselves in the world, all of it has been touched by the brutality of our subordination as females, and that is the experience out of which we all, as females, must necessarily speak and do our own work. To be less than conscious here is to deny the facts of women’s subordination and is to actively disrespect women and our struggle for full humanity and so is to participate in our ongoing subordination. To appropriate our lives and experiences, or our writings, our work, is deeply disrespectful (and some other things worth talking about for a long time) in the same way other kinds of appropriation along the lines I’ve already mentioned are deeply disrespectful. Appropriation wherever it happens makes resistance to having been colonized and brutalized that much more difficult and real revolution and the upending of patriarchy that much more distant and out of reach to us.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot for a reason that is specific to my own life. I am the youngest of three children. I am the only girl. My parents were married for 15 years before I was born. My birth changed everything.

My father is dead now, but when he was alive he was diagnosed as a sociopath. This means that he can tell the difference between right and wrong, but he just doesn’t care. He was raised by an incredibly mean-spirited mother. She followed child-raising theories by the infamous Dr. Watson who believed children should be forced to fit into your lifestyle, not vice versa.

Dad managed to get by in life for many years. He was a successful college professor and administrator. He was a charming and funny man. He was also a successful con artist who never got caught.

That all came to an end one day in 1956 when he was startled to find he was capable of creating a girl child. From that point on, things went straight to hell. I was the trigger that sent him off the rails. From the day I was born.

You can imagine the details and they aren’t important. The first 20 years of my life were fucked up. The next 10 years were a time of painful growth and hard work to create a different kind of life for myself.

I lived in a world in which every system failed. The legal system failed me. The clergy failed me. The health care system failed me.

Nevertheless, I was loved. When it mattered, there were other people: friends, relatives, teachers and neighbors, even strangers. These people reached out a hand when I needed it. Every time they helped me, I grew stronger. Every time they gave me hope, I was able to survive another day.

I had lived with a person who took the low road every single time he had a choice. And yet the world contained people who made the right choice and they transformed my life.

I can’t sum this up with a cutesy rebuttal to Heart’s assessment of growing up female. I disagree with focusing on the pain. I know I would not be alive today if I hadn’t seen the hope, the promise, and the beauty that is one person helping another.

For background:

Heart's accusation that Little Light has appropriated the cultural property of radical feminism in her poem, the seam of skin and scales. Heart has posted Robin Morgan's in total at her site, but she might have to edit it since it is a violation of copywright.

I just posted this at Heart's place. I realize I made a lot of statements without explanation and I'll make an attempt to add those here, since I don't want to clutter Heart's blog with words that disagree with her.

Here's a part of my post #165 at Heart's:

Heart wrote: “What we are supposed to do, as females, is — still, in 2007 — be quiet about what pertains specifically to us as females, about what we believe violates us. I can frame my resistance to appropriation as carefully as possible– doesn’t matter. ”

For the record, I disagree with your original post because:

1. I disagree that Robin Morgan was the first to make the comparison between monsters and feminism. Shelley, Perkins Gilman and Angela Carter are all part of the same tradition. I believe Morgan recognizes and acknowledges that in her other writing.

2. I disagree that Little Light’s poem uses the monster metaphor in the same way Morgan did..

3. I disagree that Robin Morgan’s words are the property of a certain kind of feminism. While Morgan is a radical feminist, she and her writings are accepted and celebrated by all kinds of feminists. I think that’s a wonderful.

4. I disagree that feminist writers benefit from owning certain words, metaphors, etc.

5. I disagree that Little Light’s goal on her blog or in her poem was to colonize women.

I have not asked you to shutup. In fact, I’ve asked you to speak more and to clarify so I can understand your point of view. Disagreement with you on this issue does not spell hatred of women. I have read comments from many people in many places that disagree with you without “going over” to the side of your enemies. And I think it’s sad that you do not see us and do not support us.

OK. More to come. I need to look at the threads more closely and do that thing I was afraid I might: compare the two poems like the English major I used to be before I dropped out of college and joined the working class -- one of the best decisions of my life because I absolutely hated college and I pretty much love my craft.

10:42 pm -- Edited to add a comparison of the two poems

Comparing the poems:

Morgan speaks from a place of sheer exhaustion:

"Listen. I’m really slowly dying
inside myself tonight….

"Well, I am dying, suffocating from this hopelessness tonight,
from this dead weight of struggling….

"Do you understand? Dying. Going crazy.
Really. No poetic metaphor….

"Oh mother, I am tired and sick."

Morgan desperately wants to be in another place, but sees that reality as a far-off dream:

"I want a woman’s revolution like a lover.
I lust for it, I want so much this freedom,
this end to struggle and fear and lies
we all exhale, that I could die just
with the passionate uttering of that desire….

"Just once in this my only lifetime to dance
all alone and bare on a high cliff under cypress trees
with no fear of where I place my feet…."

"Sweet revolution,…"

Morgan believes the only way overcome her exhaustion and reach her desire is through pain:

"…to admit suffering is to begin
the creation of freedom….

"You’ve already taken me away from myself
with my only road back to go forward
into more madness, monsters, cobwebs, nausea…

"May my hives bloom bravely until my flesh is aflame
and burns through the cobwebs.
May we go mad together, my sisters …."


Little Light’s poem, on the other hand, rejoices in her struggle, in her refusal to give in to the pain:

There are a million and one ways out of this body, and I have clung to it, tooth and claw, despite an endless line of people and institutions who would rather I vacate the premises, and have sometimes been willing to make me bleed to convince me they're right…

"I have looked leaving my body in the eye and I have said, in the end, hell no….

"I will cling fast to this life no matter how far you drive me, how deep, with how many torches and pitchforks, biting back the whole way down. I will not give you my suicide. I will not give you my surrender…."

Little Light hangs on because the way forward is not pain, but solidarity:

"There is too much to do, too much to love, too many who need one more of us to say hell no and help them say the same…

"…because this is a monster's creed. It is for the cobbled-together, the sewn-up, the grafted-on. It is for the golden, the under-the-earth, the foreign, the travels-by-night; the filthy ship-sinking cave-dwelling bone-cracking gorgeousness that says hell no, I am not tidy. I am not easy. I am not what you suppose me to be…

"This is for the Gorgons and the vampires and the chimaeras, for Cybele and Baba Yaga, Hel and Ashtoreth, for Lamia and Scylla, for Kali and Kapo 'ula-kina'u. This is for all of them with teeth…."

"My monstrousness is not a place of shame. It is a strength…."

Little Light’s desire is not the dream Morgan lusts for, it is a reality she can create and demands to have acknowledged right here and right now:

" It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes….

"I am throwing my head back, here, and saying it: no more being afraid. Hell no.

"I am choosing to stay here, and it is mine to choose. And if that means changing shape, if that means putting together the unexpected, that is any monster's ancient right."

Therefore I see Morgan's poem as an expression of despair, pain and a stoic determination to go forward knowing the dream is a long way away.

I see Little Light as refusing to acknowledge the pain, to chose love and solidarity and to rejoice in our differences.

These are two very different viewpoints of life as we live it now and of what the future holds for all of us.

Are you a dube of The Patriarcy?

It’s good to see Donna writing again at The Silence of Our Friends. On the topic of the latest battle between women calling themselves radical feminists and feminists of other stripes, Donna wrote:

The complicated part and the part that has these women annoyed, disgusted, and angry is that some radfems have declared themselves the arbiters of who is and isn't a feminist. Those women who choose and enjoy presenting themselves in what could be considered a traditionally feminine way and/or in traditionally feminine roles must be kept out of the feminism clubhouse. I'm not sure how this can be viewed as anything but as stifling as the patriarchy, our choices are still being constricted, but now it's by the matriarchy.

I think this is a great summation of the way a lot of us view discussions about makeup, dresses, sex with men, etc. The problem is, as soon as we begin talking this way, the response of radfem women is: "I don’t have the power to kick you out, so quit pretending I do! All I’m doing is expressing an opinion! Why are you trying to suppress my right to speak?"

I have to say, I can see good and bad points on both sides of this debate, even though I would imagine my current label to be sex-positive, pr0n-tolerant feminist.

In one of these discussions, I read about a woman who lost an employment discrimination lawsuit when she was fired for not wearing makeup in her job as a bartender. The details don’t really matter. What matters was several women were pissed that they HAD to wear makeup in order to keep their jobs.

Bear with me as I explain why my situation may differ from that of many women involved in these discussions.

I work in a corporation in the Midwest in which corporate dress, including makeup, is strongly encouraged. Yet I choose not to wear makeup. Every day I see maybe a thousand women at work and my guess is less than 12 of us make the decision to not wear makeup.

I experience zero discomfort over this decision, although I expect some of my co-workers may feel differently. But I can also walk down the streets in this metropolitan area and see dozens if not hundreds of women who also do not wear makeup.

Do I live in a lesbian utopia? Nope. But I do live in a state that until very recently was overwhelmingly devoted to agriculture. So the women who were and are valued here are strong, skilled and no-nonsense farmwomen. Flannel and denim clothing, leather gloves and steel-toed boots, strong arms and backs are the attributes of an ideal farmwoman. If you bothered with make-up it was gone after the first few hours of hard labor.

So my decision to not wear makeup is not seen as the choice of a militant feminist, but the choice of a powerful woman who has worked hard at good and honest labor. That makes the decision easy for me. Probably far easier than it would be for a woman living in New York City or Los Angeles.

It is hard for me to empathize with women who wear makeup resentfully or women who choose not to wear makeup but experience that decision as a source of daily tension.

Then again, I experienced that tension when I attended my 20th high school reunion. I had to force myself to not wear makeup – to not change my behavior just to fit in with that crowd. When I arrived, I realized I was the ONLY woman there not sporting stylish clothing, hairstyle, makeup, etc. I felt damned uncomfortable. I can’t imagine experiencing that feeling every day.

Which is to say, making the decision to be femmy or butch has different effects for different women in different environments.

I think it is useful when radical feminists ask us to question our decisions about how we dress or whether we wear makeup and why. Unfortunately, their appearance of being gatekeepers at the clubhouse of feminism makes it hard to respond in a way that is helpful in advancing the women's movement.

But what if we did talk about these things amongst ourselves? If you choose to be femmy or butch, do you think the decision is easy or difficult? Do you experience problems or benefits because of your decision?

I’ve noticed one rather odd result of my decision. I ride the bus every day. I usually get on before the bus gets crowded, so I’m able to observe the newcomers having to make a decision about which seat to choose when there are no empty two-person benches. It’s not uncommon for women to choose the seat next to me. But I’ve noticed that both young and middle-aged men, when forced to choose from an assortment of seats with one woman each, will choose to sit next to me. I think that I project an image of unavailability that makes them feels safer than sitting next to a more traditionally attired woman. Or maybe I’m imagining it.

So what about you? How has your choice of clothing or makeup affected the way you interact out in the world? Do you feel compelled by your environment to alter your behavior? Would you be able to change your choices on a whim without consequences? Could a butchy woman all of a sudden go femmy and feel comfortable? Vice versa? And does that say anything about the state of feminism today?

Pure Guesswork

Recent news about the rescue of a young boy who had been kidnapped in Missouri, along with the rescue of a young boy who had been captive for 4 and a half years, has got me thinking.

First, yeah, fuck all of you nitwits who ask "why didn't Sean run away?" What part of child abuse do you not understand? I am completely ignorant on the latest data about child psychology, but I saw that kid on TV. Did you not see his deference? Did you not see how he kept his eyes low and kept glancing around, making sure to notice his environment and keep track of the dangers around him? Did you not see the difference between Sean and Ben, who had only been gone a few days? Did you bother to watch?

But what's really made my mind turn lately is the missing child activist community. I've had the pleasure of meeting some local activists and they are just awesome people. This is what group of activists who are aware of the need and importance of community. As a result, their model is entirely different from the law enforcement model.

They depend on and promote community organizing. They manipulte the news media for their own purposes. They provide support for each other because it isn't coming from anybody else.

Activists need to learn from these people and adopt some of their valuable tactics.

The other day, I watched as a woman from Chicago talked about her two missing daughters on one of the morning network shows. She made the point to mention both the abducted and the runaways. It was clearly a tactic on her part. Her missing daughters were quite young and incapable of running away. But she knew enough to support the parents of runaway children as well the parents of children who've been kidnapped or worse. She stepped up to the plate and she was just awesome.

January 27 protest

I made this yesterday for the January 27 protest. Part of a national call by ANSWER

Some links I've enjoyed

Soviet Roadside Bus Stops

December 29-31, 2006 Ice Storm

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Major suckage

Amidst the joy of an awakening anti-war movement and the thrill at helping in the publication of a literary journal, I am facing a disturbing dilemma.

Yesterday, I attended an event put on by a dear friend of mine. My belief was that she was presenting some new products to be sold in a local co-op for which she volunteers.

Instead, I was treated to a sales pitch from a shyster organization called Young Life Essential Oils.

I cannot express how sad this makes me. This woman is a dear friend who helped me through difficult times. I have respected her for years. And yet, she invited me to this event and pressured me to expend major funds to become a distributor of said products.

She knows me better than most. She understands my anti-capitalist ideals. And yet ... she sat across from me and explained to me how spending enormous amounts of money for an unproven product would transform my life.

I do not know how to handle this. I have respected this woman for years for so many reasons. She is beautiful, creative, intelligent and has taught me so much about life.

I'm not angry at her for trying to sell me snake oil. I am pissed as hell that some shyster can convince this amazing, beautiful, intelligent woman that she should sell this nonsense to her friends.

If anyone out there has had a similar experience and has valuable advice, I'd be happy for suggestions.

We're not buying it

Well, Bush spoke last night. I didn't listen. I was with a group of activists putting together a mailing for a local literary journal. Lots of fun and interesting conversation.

This morning, we went to the first scheduled demonstration. This one was called by a member of Friends for a Non-Violent World and took place at the office of Senator Norm Coleman. The office is near an intersection over the interstate, so there was lots of traffic. About 200 people were there while we were there from 7 to 8:15 a.m. At 8:30, some of the protesters planned to enter the Senators office and express their demand for immediate troop withdrawal.

Among the attendees were 20 students from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa who got up at 4 a.m. to make the trek to the Twin Cities. These people were simply awesome. I heard one young woman talking to a NBC cameraman. She said, I watched the speech alone and felt so bad that I called a bunch of friends. We all decided we had to take action and that's why we're here this morning.

There were two protests scheduled in the afternoon. One was called by neighbors for peace with about 100 protesters in St. Paul during rush hour. The other was at the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. I saw a clip on the news tonight and it looked like about 100 people attended.

Every media report I saw of activists' protest against the war followed up with confirmation that the majority of people in the U.S. and Iraq oppose the government's policies.

Tomorrow there is another demonstration at the Federal Building at 4:30. The slumbering movement has reawakened. Who knows what might happen?

Counter Propaganda Tactics

For weeks now we've been hearing about the President's plan to put more troops into Iraq. Anti-war activists have been seeing this as an opportunity to promote the immediate withdrawal argument.

So last Saturday, when it was clear the Prez was going to speak this week, the local antiwar coaltion, Iraq Peace Action Coalition (IPAC), met and discussed how to respond.

The antiwar movement contains groups with different goals and agendas. There are groups based among students, among the faith communities, pacifists, radicals, neighborhoods, veterans and others.

At this point in time, however, there is increasing activism among the families who have relatives serving in the war. There primary slogan is "Bring the troops home now and take care of them when they get back."

As it happens, the local chapter of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) has their regular meeting on Wednesday nights. When it looked likely that the Prez would speak on Wednesday, they agreed to invite the press to their meeting and express their viewpoint.

In addition, two emergency demonstrations were planned, one tomorrow morning at Senator Coleman's office called by Friends for a Non-Violent World, and one on Friday afternoon called by IPAC. These demonstrations are a chance to get the word out, to allow activists to vent their frustration with the government's plans, and to put pressure on Congress.

So the last few days we put together a flyer for the demo and wrote several press releases. Tonight we found out that all four local network affiliates took us up on the offer to visit with MFSO. Most of them wanted footage before the speech, so MFSO members got together this morning and afternoon to meet with the press and present their viewpoint.

We just watched the 9 a.m. FOX news. The report was awesome, with the reporter emphasizing and supporting MFSO's mistrust of the President and his plan.

It's amazing what three years of ineffective war can do to the prestitutes. We'll see what happens at 10 o'clock. We heard from a member of MFSO that three local network affiliates were there to watch the speech with them.

Helveticafilm blog is live

At TypeCon in August, I met Gary Hustwit, the director of Helvetica A Documentary Film. Now he's blogging and can be found here.

Here's a still from the film (see if you can spot the Helvetica):

Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's

From an old article at the Wall Street Journal

He, Once a She, Offers Own View On Science Spat

By SHARON BEGLEY
July 13, 2006

Ben Barres had just finished giving a seminar at the prestigious Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 10 years ago, describing to scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and other top institutions his discoveries about nerve cells called glia. As the applause died down, a friend later told him, one scientist turned to another and remarked what a great seminar it had been, adding, "Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's."

There was only one problem. Prof. Barres, then as now a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, doesn't have a sister in science. The Barbara Barres the man remembered was Ben.

Prof. Barres is transgendered, having completed the treatments that made him fully male 10 years ago. The Whitehead talk was his first as a man, so the research he was presenting was done as Barbara.

Being first a female scientist and then a male scientist has given Prof. Barres a unique perspective on the debate over why women are so rare at the highest levels of academic science and math: He has experienced personally how each is treated by colleagues, mentors and rivals.

Based on those experiences, as well as research on gender differences, Prof. Barres begs to differ with what he calls "the Larry Summers Hypothesis," named for the former Harvard president who attributed the paucity of top women scientists to lack of "intrinsic aptitude." In a commentary in today's issue of the journal Nature, he writes that "the reason women are not advancing [in science] is discrimination" and the "Summers Hypothesis amounts to nothing more than blaming the victim."

In his remarks at an economics conference in January 2005, Mr. Summers said "socialization" is probably a trivial reason for the low number of top female mathematicians and scientists. But Prof. Barres, who as Barbara received the subtle and not-so-subtle hints that steer smart girls away from science, doesn't see it that way. The top science and math student in her New Jersey high school, she was advised by her guidance counselor to go to a local college rather than apply to MIT. She applied anyway and was admitted.

As an MIT undergraduate, Barbara was one of the only women in a large math class, and the only student to solve a particularly tough problem. The professor "told me my boyfriend must have solved it for me," recalls Prof. Barres, 51 years old, in an interview. "If boys were raised to feel that they can't be good at mathematics, there would be very few who were."

Although Barbara Barres was a top student at MIT, "nearly every lab head I asked refused to let me do my thesis research" with him, Prof. Barres says. "Most of my male friends had their first choice of labs. And I am still disappointed about the prestigious fellowship I lost to a male student when I was a Ph.D. student," even though the rival had published one prominent paper and she had six.

As a neuroscientist, Prof. Barres is also skeptical of the claim that differences between male and female brains might explain the preponderance of men in math and science. For one thing, he says, the studies don't adequately address whether those differences are innate and thus present from birth, or reflect the different experiences that men and women have. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who defends the Summers Hypothesis, acknowledges that the existence of gender differences in values, preferences and aptitudes "does not mean that they are innate."

The biggest recent revolution in neuroscience has been the discovery of the brain's "plasticity," or ability to change structure and function in response to experiences. "It's not hard to believe that differences between the brains of male and female adults have nothing to do with genes or the Y chromosome but may be the biological expression of different social settings," says biologist Joan Roughgarden of Stanford, who completed her own transgender transition in 1998.

Jonathan Roughgarden's colleagues and rivals took his intelligence for granted, Joan says. But Joan has had "to establish competence to an extent that men never have to. They're assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise. I remember going on a drive with a man. He assumed I couldn't read a map."

Actually, Ben Barres says there may be something to the stereotype that men are better map readers. The testosterone he received to become male improved his spatial abilities, he writes in Nature, though "I still get lost every time I drive."

Still, there is little evidence that lack of testosterone or anything unique to male biology is the main factor keeping women from the top ranks of science and math, says Prof. Barres, a view that is widely held among scientists who study the issue. Although more men than women in the U.S. score in the stratosphere on math tests, there is no such difference in Japan, and in Iceland the situation is flipped, with more women than men scoring at the very top.

"That seems more like 'socialization' than any difference in innate abilities to me," geneticist Gregory Petsko of Brandeis University wrote last year. In any case, except in a few specialized fields like theoretical physics, there is little correlation between math scores and who becomes a scientist.

Some supporters of the Summers Hypothesis suggest that temperament, not ability, holds women back in science: They are innately less competitive. Prof. Barres's experience suggests that if women are less competitive, it is not because of anything innate but because that trait has been beaten out of them.

"Female scientists who are competitive or assertive are generally ostracized by their male colleagues," he says. In any case, he argues, "an aggressive competitive spirit" matters less to scientific success than curiosity, perseverance and self-confidence.

Women doubt their abilities more than men do, say scientists who have mentored scores of each. "Almost without exception, the talented women I have known have believed they had less ability than they actually had," Prof. Petsko wrote. "And almost without exception, the talented men I have known believed they had more."

Which may account for what Prof. Barres calls the main difference he has noticed since changing sex. "People who do not know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect," he says. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."

Write to Sharon Begley at sharon.begley@wsj.com

LOLOL

Also from the Casbah (see below). Stop the Catbox!

Your Drag Queen Name Is:

Creme BruLay

Drag Queen Name Generator

This has gotta be a mistake

Found this at My Private Casbah

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Seriously, I didn't take much science. In fact I think I got credit for classes I never took in high school. Then when I got to college and took Intro to Biology, I was saying stupid things like, "Wow! You mean we know what goes on inside a cell? Amazing!"

New flyer to respond to Bush's expected speech calling for a Surge in troops to Iraq:

Feminist blogosphere wars

For background, just click on any of the links in the right-hand column of my website.

Over the last few months there have been several intense discussions among feminist bloggers. They have since become known as "wars". We had the blowjob wars, which I pretty much avoided. Then we had Burqagate, which was the first time I really threw myself into the discussions. Then there was the FireDogLake racist/feminist "your betters" battle. The latest has to do with a dust-up between radical feminists and transgendered people.

First let me note that it’s been a long time since I’ve felt part of an internet community. I was involved in TV fandom when I first came on the internet and I got into some spectacular dust-ups. I became associated with a particular message board that specialized in discussions between people who disagreed with each other. We became famous for challenging the "in-group" of the fandom; the people who ran the conventions, those with connections to particular cast or crew members, etc. Friendships were formed and broken. It was a good place to be for quite a while. But then 9/11 happened and I returned to more activist politics. My activist self and my internet persona were at such odds that I finally had to break away.

So I’ve spent a few years using my blog to track local activist efforts. Blogging is a great for this. In the 80s and 90s, we were too busy to keep track of our work, so a lot of what we did is lost to history. I appreciate a place to post an on-going scrapbook of our activities.

Lately, however, I’ve begun to get more involved in the internet community by reading and commenting on blogs by women and men whose ideas challenge and intrigue me. It seems to be a bit unfair of me to do so, however. Most of these bloggers produce a tremendous amount of thoughtful and well-written commentary on their own blogs. I have not returned the favor here. There is a wonderful method of communication on the internet in which an idea begins in an essay on one blog, then is quoted and expanded on at another blog, then another. To fully track the progress of an idea or an argument becomes a dance of clicking from one blog to another and back again.

That is what happened with the transgender discussion. For background go to Bitch|Lab and follow her link to the SmackDog Chronicles roundup. A heated discussion began on Twisty’s blog that included some virulent anti-trans comments by a radical feminist name Luckynkl among others. All of a sudden the years-long discussion between radical feminists, lesbian separatists and some members of the transgender community exploded all over the place.

Now I need to explain something about myself. I’m a mixed up bastard child. I grew up in the country and in the city and in the suburbs. I grew up upper-middle class, and lower-middle class and poor. I was brutalized by one parent and adored and supported by another. I was intelligent and well schooled and naïve and ignorant. I crossed boundaries and was totally accepted and was totally ostracized. It was both wonderful and bewildering.

Above all, I have had the benefit of awesome friends and family. I have had the benefit of people who saw a needy, confused kid and decided to reach a hand out. Because of that, I will forever be an activist. I will do whatever small thing I can to make the world a better place. I will believe that making the effort to form a community can make a difference.

At one time I was at the very pit of despair. That helps me recognize when I am relatively safe, relatively secure and therefore capable of reaching out to someone else who is not so safe and secure.

This seems important in the current discussion. Because the political differences between radical feminists and transgendered people has immediate and profound effects on individuals who have a lot to contribute to the world but are feeling less safe and secure.

First, let me speak to the radfems. I discovered radical feminism when I became involved in local Take Back the Night marches and also when I attended the Michigan Women’s Musical Festival. It was a life-changing experience for me. I had been involved in the Central America movement, the labor movement and the abortion rights movement. But entering into women-only activist spaces taught me something precious.

It was a space in which I didn’t have to explain. It was a space where my particular experiences were neither shocking nor unbelievable. Although my childhood sucked in many ways, there were people who had it worse who had also survived and made a place in the world. And there were others who did not have to experience the horrors in order to understand and give support and believe the unbelievable.

So I have a certain soft spot in my heart for these people.

Plus, I’ve had to experience activism in sexist environments. I’ve experienced activism in racist environments. I’ve experienced activism in classist environments. And I watched my mother suffer discrimination her entire god damned life. So I understand frustration.

I came to know what does work and what doesn’t work. And when it comes to finding ways that do work, the radical feminist community has done more than most to provide creative and positive solutions to difficult problems. I owe them a lot for that.

The transgender community, on the other hand, is something new to me and they challenge my assumptions. Transgendered people understand what it’s like to be an outsider and have chosen new and interesting ways to deal with outlaw realities. I’ve been incredibly lucky in that I have spoken my ignorance and been aided toward understanding.

In all of this, I’ve accrued a bit of currency in the blogosphere. I’ve seen myself quoted and linked. I’ve seen my comments picked up and repeated. This has real value in the internet world and I am definitely digging on it. Darn it all, I like that people seem to like me.

OK. Call me Sally Field.

Next post, I promise I’ll destroy all this sweet talk and mention what drives me crazy about radical feminists and transgendered people. Meanwhile, I’ll just don my flying nun hat and float on out of here.

I'm gonna be lazy and not do all the proper coding, mostly because I just need to get this down. First, I cannot express how much I am going to miss reading both Brownfemipower and Black Amazon (Having Read the Fine Print). See my blog roll for links. Both have chosen to take a break from blogging, I'm not trying to suggest they don't deserve a rest and some major pampering. They have been expressing themselves eloquently on issues that tend to make a lot of people uncomfortable. I'd come to rely on their common sense and straight talk. They have renewed my faith that there are intelligent, militant and awesome women in the world willing to take on major challenges. I'm sure they are still kicking ass. I'm just going to miss the privilege of having a window into their worlds.

I comment a lot on other people's blogs, but this blog I use mostly to help keep track of the activist work I do. In the past, I always felt too busy to keep track of all the work that gets done locally. At the end of the year I would be exhausted, but never remember all we had done. The internet and blogging is making it possible for me to look back over time and see that, yes, Virginia, there really is an activist movement and I really am a part of it.

You only have to look back at activist movements of the past to see how much progress has been made. In the anti-Vietnam War movement, there would be major conferences bringing together activists in Cleveland and San Francisco and New York. Then snail mail would go out and local activists would post notices about upcoming activities in local bars, bookstores and on college campuses. But unless you already knew about those spaces, the odds an individual person who opposed the war would actually hear about an event were very small. Today, you can Google "anti-war" and find a gazillion people doing activist work of all kinds. Today, a decision made by national organizations for specific actions around the world can be communicated within moments. And being able to track that movement has been a valuable tool for me.

However, I don't have a practice of posting my political opinions and concerns in the way that most of the people on my blog roll manage to do. Lately, that has seemed like a cop out. I comment on other blogs, but I don't place long opinion pieces here so that people made curious by my comments can learn more about where I stand.

It seems especially weird now, since the discussions at Twisty's and at Brownfemipower, have made clear some major divisions within the feminist blogosphere. I consider these latest conflicts different than Burqagate and the Fire Dog Lake blow ups because in those cases, the posters were liberals and Democrats, not leftists. I didn't believe we were involved in the same struggle.

The conflicts lately are between groups of people who want a total break from the status quo. And so the pain is a bit deeper, the bitterness a bit more intense.

In Minneapolis, divisions between revolutionaries of all persuasions have been confronted and ways of working together have been developed over the years.

For instance, the local anti-war coalition, the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, made several decisions from the beginning in 2001. First, they would not take a stand on Saddam Hussein. This isn't because some of us thought he was a great guy. Instead, it was because most of us thought that it wasn't up to U.S. citizens to decide who should lead Iraq.

Second, we agreed to not take a stand on which political party to support. For some of us, there was no difference between the two capitalist parties. More importantly, some member groups were 501c3 organizations that are legally barred from taking a stance on political parties.

Third, we agreed to make connections between the war abroad and the war at home. Issues of welfare reform, affordable housing, money for education, racism and sexism were included in our events. Some activists see this as a way of diluting the antiwar message. But our experience has been that people who begin to become politically active because of their opposition to the war are in a space that allows them to start questioning the system as a whole.

Fourth, we agreed that individual groups should be supported in the various ways in which they choose to oppose the war. Visiting anti-war speakers would be shared among different groups: religious, academic, spiritual, student. Our skills would be shared and our various groups supported in their efforts. Some groups do rallies. Some groups do educational events. Some groups do civil disobedience. Some groups do regular vigils. Some groups do agitprop. Some groups do cultural events. Some groups do work in the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) party.

Some actions became widespread. Anti-war lawn signs were a new and important part of the movement this time around. Thousands of signs were produced and displayed by individual home owners throughout the area.

A weekly anti-war vigil that occurs on a bridge across the Mississippi River between the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul became a safe space in which newbies to the anti-war movement were able to feel safe and comfortable in expressing opposition to the war. They could learn about other antiwar activities, and they could realize they were not alone by meeting antiwar activists of all persuasions. They could hear the supportive honks and see the thumbs up signals from people driving across the bridge.

Local e-mail lists collated activist activities into calendars that gave each of us numerous opportunities to become educated, activated and rejuvenated.

So I have to say that I believe we are making progress. Things still suck. Soldiers continue to die. Iraqis are suffering tremendously. And yet progress is being made. Or as Willy Loman's wife said, "Attention must be paid."

All of us need to give ourselves props for doing good work and making a difference in the world. Sure we have problems, disagreements and irritations every single day. But we are also blessed with amazing tools to bring us together, to educate ourselves and to help one another in our work to make this world a better place.

I'm gonna stop here for now. Happy New Year to one and all. May you and your loved ones be happy and healthy and may the new year bring all of us a better world.

What I am saying in my very long-winded way is that we can have different goals, different definitions of what is wrong in the world and even different views of who is the main enemy and we can still work together. I've experienced it. I treasure it. I believe it can happen even on the internets.

All we need do is make the effort. My experience is that it is definitely worth it. Won't you join me?

300 Minnesotans protest the war

Our story and Bert Kayakbiker's images can be found here. It's been a holiday tradition for many years to protest on one of the pre-Xmas shopping days. It's a great time and rejuvenating for the movement. These days, the support from people walking and driving by is almost unanimous. Santa came to visit, the Counter-Propaganda Singers sang anti-war carols and toy soldiers with the message "bring me home" were hung on a pine tree in the park.