About Mothers Day . . .

Published on Sunday, May 13, 2012 by Common Dreams by Medea Benjamin

Celebrating On the Commons returns next Sunday.

Don’t Send Me Roses for Mothers Day

What happened to us mothers? We allowed this holiday to get away from us. We allowed it to become commercialized, individualized, commodified, unpoliticized. We allowed it to be about superficial symbols of love—flowers and chocolates and store-bought cards. We allowed it be a time when we, as mothers, sit back and receive personal recognition, instead of a time when we, as mothers, stand up together to make collective demands.

Let’s be clear about what Mothers Day was supposed to be, before it fell out of our grip. It was the brainchild of a brilliant woman, Julia Ward Howe, who was horrified by the carnage and suffering during the Civil War and the economic devastation that followed. She was also heart-broken by the outbreak of war between France and Germany in 1870, with its ominous display of German military might and imperial designs. She used her poetic gift to pen a proclamation against war, a proclamation that birthed Mothers Day.

"Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause," Julia wrote. "Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. " Her solution? Women should gather together to "promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace."

So here we are, more than a century later, still in the throes of wars abroad and violence in our communities. But instead of coming together to say “Disarm, disarm,” we are content with trinkets and breakfast in bed. Isn’t it time to get out of bed, out of the kitchen, out of the house and into the streets? We should be demanding that our government stop pillaging our treasury by spending $2 billion a week on an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. We should be demanding good education and forgiveness of our children’s college loans, not more money for the bloated Pentagon. We should be demanding that the guns that kill over 30,000 of our sons and daughters every year here at home be banished from the store shelves. We should demand that our nation stop locking up our children for nonviolent crimes, just to feed a disgraceful private prison industry. We should demand that conflict resolution be mandatory in our schools to stop bullying and prejudice, and that diplomacy be mandatory in our foreign relations.

This is our day, moms. Let’s reclaim it and embrace its origins. Our day should not be solely about us, as individuals, but about us embodying the collective desires of mothers around the world—to stop our children from killing and being killed by others mother’s children. No one is going to bring that to us on a breakfast platter; it’s something that we women demand.

Happy Mothers Day.

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart., and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

New Propaganda

Documentarian John Pilger writes:

What is modern propaganda? For many, it is the lies of a totalitarian state. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her epic films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerized Germans; her Triumph of the Will cast Hitler's spell. 

She told me that the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above" but on the "submissive void" of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? "Everyone," she said. 

Today, we prefer to believe that there is no submissive void. "Choice" is ubiquitous. Phones are "platforms" that launch every half-thought. There is Google from outer space if you need it. Caressed like rosary beads, the precious devices are borne heads-down, relentlessly monitored and prioritized. Their dominant theme is the self. Me. My needs. Riefenstahl's submissive void is today's digital slavery. [editor emphasis.]

source

Small Spaces etc. - Casa Kids, furniture for smaller bodies

Better utilization of space is the underlying theme of a smaller footprint in our homes and lifestyles. We've also made the obvious connection of economic value in reducing square footage of homes and apartments.

Today we feature an Argentinian designer, Alberto Gil, who has designed for kids for the last 20 years.

Casa Kids by Roberto Gil from Roberto Gil on Vimeo.

Here's how Casa Kids describes the project:

Roberto has manipulated the relatively small space to create an environment where the two sisters who share it can enjoy private and common space in equal measure, imparting a powerful sense of autonomy for each sister. They both enjoy a private area for sleep and study, as well as their own nooks and niches, scaled specifically to their smaller frames and shorter vantage points. Providing the sisters with a sense of privacy and belonging, while still allowing them to come together in the central area that’s created by the symmetrical staircases that surround it, is the chief accomplishment of this design.

In addition to effectively creating two rooms within a room, the design is a powerhouse in terms of storage. Roberto has built deep
drawers into each bed, in addition to the drawers that double as stairs within the identical staircases. The room also features endless shelving and a three-tier closet that stands more than nine feet high. The U-shaped staircases offer increased safety as children climb up and down, as well as make it easy for parents to access their children’s beds when it’s time for laundry, bedtime stories or cozying up next to sleepy faces.

Roberto has dubbed the design an example of
“Children’s Architecture” because of the way it mimics large-scale architecture on kid-size terms.

via Apartment Therapy

Small Spaces etc. - Micro Minimal

This week the most minimal of small spaces to date. The first is called One-Sqm-House. This one square meter (10 square feet) dwelling is an architect's prototype. This clip is via Alex at Tiny House Talk, whose tag line is "small spaces more freedom."

When I first saw this I thought of past competitions for architects and designers to produce temporary, emergency and homeless shelter.

The examples below are from one of these competitions 5 years ago. I've since lost the proper links to the source. Whoops.

There is a kind of hierarchy within the homeless population.  There are those who have found temporary shelter within homes of family or friends, those who have an RV or car, those who have vouchers for temporary shelter and those simply fending for themselves on the street.  Despite the most common picture of a homeless person being like the Banksy illustration at the beginning of this post or the guy above, it is women with children who are in fact the most vulnerable of homeless population. 

The Babes of Wrath are two women, Diane Nilan and Pat LaMarche, who travel around the country and work with homeless children and families. You can follow their EPIC Journey (Everyday People In Crisis) here. They are interviewed here on the Young Turks.

Recently the homeless were counted in San Diego County, a local girl mounted a blanket distribution project for the homeless in memory of her uncle and housing strategies for lowest income has presumably been the subject of several years of General Planning Update citizen participation. 

Aternet is currently running a series on the poor. Part 1's recent article, 2 Years in Jail for Sitting on a Milk Crate? The Shocking Ways America Punishes Poor People Living on the Street (Hard Times, USA) haunted me. I know from experience how few places there are to sit while walking in Encinitas. We aren't alone. Laws all over the country are designed solely to target the homeless. There are better solutions. 

Part 2 is titled Hard Times, USA: Would You Consider Thinking Differently About Poverty and Poor and Homeless People? A huge number of Americans feel vulnerable every day of every week, their future unknown. What are you going to do about it? Both of these are really excellent articles and are recommended. The rest of this powerful series Hard Times USA is at Alternet this month.

There is one simple response (as the video illustrated) for what is the most important thing one could spend money on for the homeless? Houses. Simple but not easy to incorporate in our community dialog.

Small Spaces etc. - One by One by One

In a beach community accessory units are no surprise.  And, it is important to survival for many that these homes remain a part of the shadow economy because local, state and national laws emphatically impose constraints that do more harm than good for actual people, especially the most vulnerable of the working class and middle class.  This is a look at the great need that these small spaces satisfy and leave the legal constraints for another day. From Grist a quick peek at a couple of options, but the original post shows a whole range for living large in small houses.

Jon and Ryah Dietzen moved from their 1,500-square-foot home to a 400-square-foot cottage with two toddlers. They made the move for its financial freedom, but the benefits didn’t stop there. “We realized after a few months how much time, freedom, and peace we were gaining by not collecting and spending our time taking care of more ‘stuff,’” Jon Dietzen told me. By choosing a smaller house, they found a better balance between work and home life.

Here is the “before” shot.

A lot in a small space: kitchen island, living room, and a bedroom behind a curtain.

Small homes combat neighborhood decline brought on by shrinking household sizes. Adding people can revitalize a neighborhood, allowing schools to stay open, giving neighborhood businesses more customers, making transit service cost-effective, and saving on infrastructure costs. Infilling neighborhoods with backyard cottages helps add more people to a neighborhood, without altering its character. 

As homeowners build small dwellings, they provide lower-cost housing within the existing fabric of their neighborhood, with no government support necessary. Vancouver’s planning director, Brent Toderian, sees this as the essential value of the trend towards small homes: “[It’s] about ordinary people. Thousands of individual homeowners can do it, one by one by one. It’s publicly propelled, not corporate-propelled, densification. It’s gradual. It’s discreet. It’s green.” [ed.emphasis]

Now that many cities have figured out backyard cottage rules, they face a new challenge: dealing with homes even tinier than the typical accessory dwelling. Some cities’ regulations set minimum size requirements for dwellings. Others say a recreational vehicle can’t count as an accessory dwelling unit, which means “you can camp in your little house, but not live in it,” writes Dee Williams. Tiny houser Lina Menard suggests that “people should have the right to a tiny house as long as it accommodates their needs and desires.” But for people to exercise that right, cities will have to rethink the zoning rules that stand in the way of tiny homes.

Dee Williams is well known to many since the uploading of the following video clip in 2008 and shown in the corporate media many times since.

Dee Williams decided to rethink her American Dream after building a school in Guatemala and having a close friend get cancer made her reevaluate her priorities. “He was getting sicker and sicker, and I didn’t have the time or the money to really throw myself into helping him. I was spending a lot of time and money on my house. So the house was the easiest thing to try to get rid of,” Williams told Yes! magazine. So she sold her 1,500-square-foot Portland home and built an 84-square-foot tiny home for $10,000. Now she lives without a mortgage, giving her the time and money to invest in her friends and community.

Via Grist

Whoops! this became a 2 for 1 post day by accident. Accidentally got some posting dates wrong. Enjoy.

Small Spaces etc. - Teenager Builds a Tiny House

Kirstin Dirksen filmed Austin Hay when he was mid-project building the tiny home he started at age 16.  She returns at different stages until it's completion in his senior year, September 2012.

For more about Austin and photographs of his process, visit Inhabitat design blog for an interview with the young builder at the beginning of this project.

I Have A Dream - I Have A Drone

captured on the internet . . .

If M.L. King Jr.'s assassination knocked the wind out of the human movements of his lifetime, let's think about going directly "back" to him for the most effective way forward. Below comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last book of essays, “The Trumpet of Conscience,” 1968: This from “Nonviolence and Social Change”:

"…Of course, by now it is obvious that new laws are not enough. The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. For the 35 million poor people in America—not even to mention, just yet, the poor in other nations—there is a kind of strangulation in the air. In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. Now, millions of people are being strangled that way. The problem is international in scope. And it is getting worse, as the gap between the poor and the ‘affluent society’ increases.

The question that now divides the people who want radically to change that situation is: can a program of nonviolence—even if it envisions massive civil disobedience—realistically expect to deal with such an enormous, entrenched evil?

…I intend to show that nonviolence will be effective, but not until it has achieved the massive dimensions, the disciplined planning, and the intense commitment of a sustained, direct-action movement of civil disobedience on the national scale….

…The only real revolutionary, people say, is a man who has nothing to lose. There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.

Beginning in the New Year, we will be recruiting three thousand of the poorest citizens from ten different urban and rural areas to initiate and lead a sustained, massive, direct-action movement in Washington, D.C. Those who choose to join this initial three thousand, this nonviolent army, this ‘freedom church’ of the poor, will work with us for three months to develop nonviolent action skills. Then we will move on Washington, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action on jobs and income.

A delegation of poor people can walk into a high official’s office with a carefully, collectively prepared list of demands. (If you’re poor, if you’re unemployed anyway, you can choose to stay in Washington as long as the struggle needs you.) And if that official says, ‘But Congress would have to approve this,’ or, ‘But the President would have to be consulted on that,’ you can say, ‘All right, we’ll wait.’ And you can settle down in his office for as long a stay as necessary.

If you are, let’s say, from rural Mississippi, and have never had medical attention, and your children are undernourished and unhealthy, you can take those little children into the Washington hospitals and stay with them there until the medical workers cope with their needs, and in showing it your children, you will have shown this country a sight that will make it stop in its busy tracks and think hard about what it has done.

The many people who will come and join this three thousand, from all groups in the country’s life, will play a supportive role, deciding to be poor for a time along with the dispossessed who are asking for their right to jobs or income—jobs, income, the demolition of slums, and the rebuilding by the people who live there of new communities in their place; in fact, a new economic deal for the poor.

…I have said that the problem, the crisis we face, is international in scope. In fact, it is inseparable from an international emergency that involves the poor, the dispossessed, and the exploited of the whole world.

Can a nonviolent, direct-action movement find application on the international level, to confront economic and political problems? I believe it can. It is clear to me that the next stage of the movement is to become international.

National movements within the developed countries—forces that focus on London, or Paris, or Washington, or Ottawa—must help to make it politically feasible for their governments to undertake the kind of massive aid that the developing countries need if they are to break the chains of poverty. We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism. Americans in particular must help their nation repent of her modern economic imperialism.

But movements in our countries alone will not be enough….So many of Latin America’s problems have roots in the United States of America that we need to form a solid, united movement, nonviolently conceived and carried through, so that pressure can be brought to bear on the capital and government power structures concerned, from both sides of the problem at once. I think that may be the only hope for a nonviolent solution in Latin America today; and one of the most powerful expressions of nonviolence may come out of that international coalition of socially aware forces, operating outside governmental frameworks.

…In practice, such a decision would represent such a major reordering of priorities that we should not expect that any movement could bring it about in one year or two. Indeed, although it is obvious that nonviolent movements for social change must internationalize, because of the interlocking nature of the problems they all face, and because otherwise those problems will breed war, we have hardly begun to build the skills and the strategy, or even the commitment, to planetize our movement for social justice.

…In this world, nonviolence is no longer an option for intellectual analysis: it is an imperative for action."

Source: Commenter DrJack37 within Common Dreams post

Editor: 43 years later, the numbers of poor, displaced and exploited have skyrocketed - otherwise little has changed.

The Distress of the Privileged

The temptation to just post the entire piece by Weekly Shift is very strong. But, no, you need to read the whole thing over there. You'll have to settle for some excerpts and the framing device below as described in the original piece.

In a memorable scene from the 1998 film Pleasantville (in which two 1998 teen-agers are transported into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV show), the father of the TV-perfect Parker family returns from work and says the magic words “Honey, I’m home!”, expecting them to conjure up a smiling wife, adorable children, and dinner on the table. 

This time, though, it doesn’t work. No wife, no kids, no food. Confused, he repeats the invocation, as if he must have said it wrong. After searching the house, he wanders out into the rain and plaintively questions this strangely malfunctioning Universe: “Where’s my dinner?”

George never demanded a privileged role, he just uncritically accepted the role society assigned him and played it to the best of his ability. And now suddenly that society isn’t working for the people he loves, and they’re blaming him. 

It seems so unfair. He doesn’t want anybody to be unhappy. He just wants dinner. 

Levels of distress. But even as we accept the reality of George’s privileged-white-male distress, we need to hold on to the understanding that the less privileged citizens of Pleasantville are distressed in an entirely different way. (Margaret Atwood is supposed to have summed up the gender power-differential like this: “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.”) 

George deserves compassion, but his until-recently-ideal housewife Betty Parker (and the other characters assigned subservient roles) deserves justice. George and Betty’s claims are not equivalent, and if we treat them the same way, we do Betty an injustice.

The author cites the carefully parsed argument of Wayne Self's analysis of the Chick-Fil-A obsessions last summer, a series on the distress of the privileged in this post. Between these two writers' insights, we have a really dynamic opportunity to open up the conversations around privilege, justice and scale. As is the norm of coastal California, Encinitas is a bastion of white privilege. But no community is a monolith.  There is more diversity than what is most visible in the press and the government and the advertising.  What is seldom talked about openly is the fact that changes, like more equitable opportunities, bring distress.  Again, read the whole thing for the whole picture as this is just a glimpse.

Great Potential Lies Before Us

Image Source

For some the precocious child is just annoying.  You'll want to skip this one. For the rest of us there is something stirring about hearing clear statements, delivered with sincere passion and excitement.

I can recall at age 12 being asked to ride on a League of Women Voters float along with other kids.  This was an utterly passive experience compared with the bright young minds in the video clips here, but it instilled a deep sense of civic pride and responsibility I still feel lives within me and helps shape my choices. 

"Here are a couple of downer facts about mountaintop removal mining: 500 of the oldest mountains in America have been destroyed. There are 2,000 miles of streams poisoned." Source: I Love Mountains - No More Excuses, Appalachian Voices via Grist

The message constantly being attributed with Idle No More is one of solidarity and looking out for future generations of Indigenous Peoples and the environment. A message that can best be shared by members of future generations like 11-year-old Ta’Kaiya Blaney.

The Young activist talks about the changes in our environment, the Keystone XL Pipeline and more before sharing her perception on what Idle No More means. “As we are standing on unceded territory, and we have that right. And that’s what Idle No More is all about. It’s about us standing up and speaking up. We’ve never really been asleep and now more than ever we’re awake and we’re standing up.” Source: Idle No More Has Voices of the Future Generation

This is a couple years old but still timely. Birke Baehr -"What's Wrong With Our Food System? And How Can We Make A Difference?" via Mim Michleove on Facebook

Mayor Teresa Arballo Barth provided a link to a Western City (CA League of Cities magazine) article that captured the energy of the Dec. 30 Post, We ALL Can Do It. This is a real thing in the real world, yet it feels more like a Tell-A-Vision opportunity.

Santa Monica has taken a national program, Rosie's Girls and given it a civic twist. This sounds like something Encinitas would be perfect for expanding our growing community building muscles and long term resilience. With a new council of dynamic women leaders, we have an encouraging model for our town's daughters to be able to emulate. And, doesn't this seem an especially good entrée for more diversity in our predominantly white city government and activist ranks?

The City Becomes a Classroom

Each summer, as part of the Rosie’s Girls Santa Monica program, more than 60 girls between the ages of 11 and 13 don hard hats, wield hammers and take blowtorches in hand as they go behind the scenes to find out what it really takes to run a city. Over the course of three intense weeks, the girls actively take part in nearly all city functions from carpentry to plumbing, tree trimming and more. They also sit in the hot seat behind the dais at a mock city council meeting. The combination of creative expression and daily challenges increases leadership capacity, stimulates critical thinking about gender equity and has participants looking forward to more.

“Our program takes the original Rosie’s Girls model one step further by transforming the participants’ hometown into a classroom,” says Julie Rusk, human services manager for the City of Santa Monica and co-founder of Rosie’s Girls Santa Monica. “Learning about a city from the inside out creates an extraordinary opportunity to connect girls with their community, while having lots of fun.”

For a general sense of Rosie's Girls, the following video clip of a Vermont camp captures the excitement these girls and their parents feel about this program.

The week of Jan. 16th our new city council members, including Deputy Mayor Lisa Shaffer will be at a League of Cities training conference.  It would be great (in a continuation of the Tell-A-Vision theme) if she and her councilmen colleagues have a chance to meet someone from Santa Monica to find out first hand about this wonderful program for the young women of Santa Monica.  Having more than a decade of data on their Rosie's Girls Santa Monica, the success rate for their community is impressive.

Empowering and Inspiring Girls 

A recent study of the Rosie’s Girls past and present found that 96 percent of respondents reported increased overall confidence, with 97 percent indicating that the program made them believe they could do and be whatever they wanted. Parents often notice this change in their daughters. Eugene, a Rosie’s Girls father, believed he could see confidence building in his daughter thanks to the program; he was sure it would benefit her throughout her life. [ . . . ]

The program has also created a stronger community. Among past participants, 90 percent reported increased community service and advocacy and 88 percent assumed leadership roles in various settings. 

By exposing young women to civic functions, professional careers and technical trades, Rosie’s Girls Santa Monica encourages them to expand their view of what they can achieve and enhances their sense of community at a particularly vulnerable time in their development. 

The emphasis was mine. Their first participants would be in their twenties now. For anyone interested in personally taking some action, the following information is for you.

Contact: Carla Fantozzi, principal supervisor, community services programs, Human Services Division, Community and Cultural Services Department, City of Santa Monica; phone: (310) 458-8688; email: carla.fantozzi@smgov.net.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Forgive the utter banality of using the old man time, new baby with a top hat iconography to end this year.  The thing is I couldn't get over how dead-on this silly, overused graphic fits the end of 2012.

This was the year we witness the old white men in power spending billions to spread lies, hate and fear for months on end to ensure that the status quo would not be threatened.  It was a catastrophic failure and proof that something new is afoot in the US of A.

These old white guys failed miserably and the staggering missteps and blunders continue. Millions of us want to see them go away, be silent, be shamed and most of all be held accountable for the misery they engender.

The promise of new ways to be within a dying empire will be the way we will be devoting ourselves when that old regime rages no more.  

We ALL Can Do It!

An affirmation for a new year - Making the invisible visible

(and a birthday gift for someone close)

via soirart, via gradient lair

Gleaning

In this season of food drives, here is a challenging idea for Encinitas to consider in all the growing seasons to come. Gleaning. The video below speaks to Ventura County and their Food Share Program.

What do we have in San Diego County? We have Senior Gleaners with an emphasis on grocery store shelves in this coastal area. It would be good to hear what exists now and what might really fit well with our community goals and community future. Sounds like this is a wonderful start. And, boy do we have seniors. Encinitas seniors appear to be a vigorous and involved lot.

"The Senior Gleaners of San Diego County are working to enhance the food-giving capacities of local agencies, most of which run out of food on a monthly basis. Senior Gleaners is divided into three main working groups in the county , South County, North County and the Coastal area. Each area has a team of workers who volunteer to pick, sort, gather and deliver up to 100,000 pounds of food to area agencies monthly. Only agencies that qualify under federal poverty rules (and have a 501-c-3 nonprofit status) are eligible to receive the food. Growers contact team leaders when they have crops that are over-ripe or too costly to pick; certain grocery stores offer edible food that cannot be sold and packing sheds have crates of food that is not suitable for the marketplace but safe to eat."

The Gleaners from Hunger In California on Vimeo.

On another local note, how about gleaning urban neighborhoods where homeowners with more fruit trees than they can manage could contact Encinitas gleaners to harvest and distribute this foraged fruit?  What about involving the young? vets? women in particular? What about future plans to plant many fruit and nut trees in Encinitas Urban Forest for this kind of public use? The right entrepreneurial spirit could do a great deal here.

Waste is our easiest target for eradicating ills - be it insufficient food, energy, money, goods or services - or the existence of litter and pollution.

Killers

Ten Arguments Gun Advocates Make, and Why They're Wrong

by PAUL WALDMAN 12/15/12 in The American Prospect Post (in total)

A guide to the debate we'll be having, or at least we ought to have.

There has been yet another mass shooting, something that now seems to occur on a monthly basis. Every time another tragedy like this occurs, gun advocates make the same arguments about why we can't possibly do anything to restrict the weaponization of our culture. Here's a guide to what they'll be saying in the coming days:

1. Now isn't the time to talk about guns.
We're going to hear this over and over, and not just from gun advocates; Jay Carney said it to White House reporters today. But if we're not going to talk about it now, when are we going to talk about it? After Sandy hit the East Coast, no one said, "Now isn't the time to talk about disaster preparedness; best leave that until it doesn't seem so urgent." When there's a terrorist attack, no one says, "Now isn't the time to talk about terrorism." Now is exactly the time.

2. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Maybe, but people with guns kill many, many more people than they would if they didn't have guns, and guns designed to kill as many people as possible. We don't know if the murderer in Newtown was suffering from a suicidal depression, but many mass shooters in the past were. And guess what? People suffer from suicidal depression everywhere in the world. People get angry and upset everywhere in the world. But there aren't mass shootings every few weeks in England or Costa Rica or Japan, and the reason is that people in those places who have these impulses don't have an easy way to access lethal weapons and unlimited ammunition. But if you want to kill large numbers of people and you happen to be an American, you'll find it easy to do.

3. If only everybody around was armed, an ordinary civilian could take out a mass killer before he got too far.
If that were true, then how come it never happens? The truth is that in a chaotic situation, even highly trained police officers often kill bystanders. The idea that some accountant who spent a few hours at the range would suddenly turn into Jason Bourne and take out the killer without doing more harm than good has no basis in reality.

4. We don't need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have.
The people who say this are the same ones who fight to make sure that existing laws are as weak and ineffectual as possible. Our current gun laws are riddled with loopholes and allow people to amass enormous arsenals of military-style weapons with virtually no restrictions.

5. Criminals will always find a way to get guns no matter what measures we take, so what's the point?
The question isn't whether we could snap our fingers and make every gun disappear. It's whether we can make it harder for criminals to get guns, and harder for an unbalanced person with murderous intent to kill so many people. The goal is to reduce violence as much as possible. There's no other problem for which we'd say if we can't solve it completely and forever we shouldn't even try.

6. The Constitution says I have a right to own guns.
Yes it does, but for some reason gun advocates think that the right to bear arms is the only constitutional right that is virtually without limit. You have the right to practice your religion, but not if your religion involves human sacrifice. You have the right to free speech, but you can still be prosecuted for incitement or conspiracy, and you can be sued for libel. Every right is subject to limitation when it begins to threaten others, and the Supreme Court has affirmed that even though there is an individual right to gun ownership, the government can put reasonable restrictions on that right.

And we all know that if this shooter turns out to have a Muslim name, plenty of Americans, including plenty of gun owners, will be more than happy to give up all kinds of rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Have the government read my email? Have my cell phone company turn over my call records? Check which books I'm taking out of the library? Make me take my shoes off before getting on a plane, just because some idiot tried to blow up his sneakers? Sure, do what you've got to do. But don't make it harder to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition, because if we couldn't do that we'd no longer be free.

7. Widespread gun ownership is a guarantee against tyranny.
If that had anything to do with contemporary life, then mature democracies would be constantly overthrown by despots. But they aren't. We shouldn't write laws based on the fantasies of conspiracy theorists.

8. Guns are a part of American culture.
Indeed they are, but so are a lot of things, and that tells us nothing about whether they're good or bad and how we want to treat them going forward. Slavery was a part of American culture for a couple of hundred years, but eventually we decided it had to go.

9. The American people don't want more gun control.
The truth is that when public opinion polls have asked Americans about specific measures, the public is in favor of a much more restrictive gun regime than we have now. Significant majorities would like to see the assault weapons ban reinstated, mandatory licensing and training for all gun owners, significant waiting periods for purchases, and host of other restrictions (there are more details here). In many cases, gun owners themselves support more restrictions than we currently have.

10. Having movie theaters and schools full of kids periodically shot up is just a price we should be willing to pay if it means I get to play with guns and pretend I'm Wyatt Earp.
OK, that's actually an argument gun advocates don't make. But it's the truth that lies beneath all their other arguments. All that we suffer because of the proliferation of guns—these horrifying tragedies, the 30,000 Americans who are killed every year with guns—for gun advocates, it's unfortunate, but it's a price they're willing to [have others] pay. If only they'd have the guts to say it.

Postscript: The other vital conversation we should be having in this country that goes beyond guns.  This is a heartbreaking story, 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother' - Let's talk mental illness.

Update: 12:30 pm, Sunday - Add your name to ask the Obama Administration to immediately address the issue of gun control through introduction of legislation in congress.

Climate 101

Sometimes just keeping it as simple and direct as possible - for our children, our contrary friends/family/neighbors and for ourselves. For that we have the Science Guy, Bill Nye.

Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

The film shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from trash.

Number of the Day

Five-hundred and fifty-five votes behind, five-hundred and fifty-five votes needed right now to catch up.  Plus, these same five-hundred and fifty-five people need to vote again every day for the next 9 days.

Can we do this people?

Oh yes, this is what is needed for our very own Solana Center to win the competition in the Earth 8 Eco Ambassadors contest for $25,000 prize money.

Tell everyone you know - 9 days of a simple mouse click or two to give our EUSD school kids a continued program they all love - reducing waste, composting and learning more than many parents know about the earth's natural systems.

Vote here.

Image: flickr Eve the Weaver

Thanks Due for Playing Outside

For those old enough to remember and those who had the privilege of nature as a playground, childhood for many of us was a wonderous adventure during play time.

I'm now grateful that on Saturdays and in the summer I was able to play outside, anywhere in my neighborhood, all day long until I had to eat lunch or go to the bathroom or I heard Mom's dinner bell screwed onto the front of the house.

It was also a generous gift, I now realize, to be allowed to go to summer camp for a week beginning when I was 6 years old.  This annual bonanza of independence and primitive living (housed in a cabin, a tipi or a leanto) was the highlight of the year for 12 consecutive years.

Learning to swim, to canoe on the river, archery contests, lashing a handrail fence up a steep hill, apprentice counselor training, primitive 3-day camping trips and the bonding with camp friends are all cherished memories.  And nobody in my family, not parents or siblings or even my Gram could ever know what I knew or feel what I felt because it was my very special unique passion.

Of all of life's joys, this experience rises above all others as a touchstone of something.   precious and personal.  This prompts another memory of my very favorite Christmas at 10 years old when I got the sleeping bag I asked for and a world globe.

All this was heightened today with the Guardian article by George Monibiot via Truthdig.

"The remarkable collapse of children’s engagement with nature – which is even faster than the collapse of the natural world – is recorded in Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, and in a report published recently by the National Trust. Since the 1970s the area in which children may roam without supervision has decreased by almost 90%. In one generation the proportion of children regularly playing in wild places in the UK has fallen from more than half to fewer than one in 10. In the US, in just six years (1997-2003) children with particular outdoor hobbies fell by half. Eleven- to 15-year-olds in Britain now spend, on average, half their waking day in front of a screen. 

… And here we meet the other great loss. Most of those I know who fight for nature are people who spent their childhoods immersed in it. Without a feel for the texture and function of the natural world, without an intensity of engagement almost impossible in the absence of early experience, people will not devote their lives to its protection. The fact that at least half the published articles on ash dieback have been illustrated with photos of beeches, sycamores or oaks seems to me to be highly suggestive."

Encinitas has the great good fortune of a climate and natural resources of ocean, wetlands, open spaces, parks and hiking trails.  Unstructured and unsupervised play has been enjoyed by generations.  There is a great tradition of surfing, skateboarding and other sports that celebrate individual exploration outside of and addition to organized sports.

For some years now there has been a real effort on the part of activist parents, various principals and teaching staff and now the Encinitas Union School District's Green Team to incorporate nature, gardens, composting, waste education into children's learning experience.  With the help of Healthy Partners, this effort is growing. Thank you Mim and Carol and all volunteers and the school district's efforts.

Don't forget to vote today and every day until Dec. 6, for Solana Center with Happy Day partners to win the Eco Ambassadors Award of $25,000 Solana Center. Vote here.

This is a close race now between 2 groups.  Solana Center is in second place so every vote counts.

You Are Not A Loan.

 Rolling Jubilee Website:

A bailout of the people by the people

Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.

Learn more or contribute.

77.5% Of US Households Are In Debt

62% Of All Bankruptcies Are Caused By A Medical Illness

Student Tuition Debt Is Over $1,000,000,000,000

1 In Every 7 US Citizens Are Pursued By Debt Collectors

The Ratio of Household Debt to Income Is 154%

40% of Indebted Households Used Credit Cards To Pay For Basic Living Expenses

A couple of the many videos available on the Rolling Jubilee website.

We Got This

This weekend a bunch of the supporters for Lisa Shaffer responded to her campaign request to bring yard signs to a couple drop off points.  Supporters were also asked to bring food donations for Community Resource Center.

She and others worked with different sources to find a place to sell back the wire sign holders, a place to donate the placticized signs for repurposing, and the paper signs for recycling.

Besides this being a good idea, it yet again shows the importance of a ground organization where people trust each other, follow through on good ideas, spread the work load and have a good time doing it. Lisa and Tony were out of town, yet this effort was handled with enthusiasm. Signs for Shaffer, Kranz & Roberts and a few others were all part of the mix along with the food donations.

This is a segue to a very big national story we posted about yesterday, the growing importance of Inter-Occupy or Occupy Sandy ground operation and organization. It has taken the Occupy movement more than a year and thousands of meetings, conflict resolutions, communication training and unending patience around the country to keep working through the realities of what community really means.  This demonstrates their unbelievable success of being able to do and not just talk.

As Abby Zimet of Common Dreams writes,

With thousands still without power, water and heat in the New York area, Occupy Sandy's ongoing and ever-expanding relief effort has been hailed as Occupy's finest hour and a triumph of doing over talking - one so efficient they're now training National Guard and city representatives of the same administration that not so long ago was hassling and pepper-spraying them. Evolution is real. So is the notion of mutual aid. Cool video.