Thoughts After Listening To Liberal Radio News

Thoughts: 1--what the heck was a show on what's supposed to be the good radio station doing letting someone act like individual actions (rather than actions taken by incorporated companies) are a significant factor behind greenhouse gas emission / a significant way to reduce it?

Ooooh, polar bears! Cute! Don't forget your mug when you get coffee! [Silence on, "Whatever you drink your coffee out of, put PRESSURE on the big whigs.]

Yeah. It was like I was listening to NPR or something. The, "Wait, I thought these people had truthful commentary--what's this?" feeling. But this radio station isn't supposed to piss me off. Drat.


2--I forgot.

Wait no I didn't. Honduras.

I don't think people w/ leftwards policy preferences are going to go back into positions of power in Honduras. I saw an analysis on Lenin's Tomb, I think, the other day talking about how the U.S.'s actions had stalled the rest of Latin America...and I'm starting to think that was really, really effective. Crud.

Hispanic Worker Deaths Up 76% While Other Worker Deaths Down

This headline on the front page of USA Today was horrifying:
Hispanic worker deaths up 76% since 1992
As was the first paragraph:

The number of Hispanic workers who die on the job has risen, even as the overall number of workplace deaths has declined, according to federal statistics.

I was horrified & sad when I saw the paper.

Now I'm more mad.

That's all, I guess.

Oh wait. I liked Hilda Solis's comment that language barriers are not an excuse for failing to protect people when they're working. Not sure what the next step is for me--targeting the gov't. to make sure they stick to it, targeting businesses (e.g. union campaigns to make businesses do certain safety things, etc.). But at least she gave me some words to arm with.

Block Party

I am going to throw a block party to get to know my neighbors!
Just submitted the permit tonight.
Sounds like a lot will be out of town or simply aren't interested...but hey...maybe we'll get some reeeeally enticing food smells going and they'll come out, too.

Yay!

Swiss Chard

I'm making "Tagine of Swiss Chard (Marak Silk)" off p. 90 in Couscous And Other Good Food From Morocco by Paula Wolfert.

This recipe is even cheaper than I thought it'd be. She calls for "about 4 bunches" to get 12 cups of finely chopped Swiss chard.

If you go for a huge bundle of full-grown leaves at one of the farmer's markets around here, it only takes one bunch. Which, at a large market, is only $1. ($2 at a small market.)

It took me 2 medium, torpedo-shaped onions to get the 1 cup of onion called for. I think there were 9 in my $3 "quart tray," so that's 67 cents.

1/2 cup of cilantro was free out of my garden--or one could count a portion of the price of the plant I planted--so cilantro was 25 cents.

Everything else is pantry stuff (spices, salad oil, & rice).

This is a CHEAP, healthy meal! And good over a sufficient strech of the summer here to get around to.

Thoughts On Food Today

I saw a great system of selling food today. Potatoes, sugar snap peas, and such by the pound. I've seen it done w/ tomatoes since last year, but I like it w/ these things, too.

For only about 10% more money than buying by the quart-bucket would've cost, I was able to pick out my own potatoes (ones that were clean so I wouldn't have to clean them much at home, saving me time) and pick out the exact amount my partner & I can eat in a meal. It was awesome.

$3.50/lb for fancy "fingerling" potatoes--and again, all perfect condition & very clean, and only 1 lb. (the quarts have more, but the farmer picks your selection, and cost $4). This works very well for me at my family size (2).

Okay, gotta turn on my music and go cook now! Have to get to REAL work around the house. I have a suspicion tooting around the market doesn't quite cut it as a day's labor.

Little Locavores Show

But I might have been tied for "out of touch with most people's ideas of 'normal'" at the market (see previous post) today!

Over the loudspeaker I heard:
"Attention all kids! Attention all kids!"
I thought, "This is cool. Lots of families brought their kids today...it might be tough to fit the kids wanting to drag their parents over somewhere into the shopping trip, if the parents have to hurry, but it's neat that someone's putting something on for the kids."
The voice on the loudspeaker continued: "Aaaaalllll little locavores, come to the cooking tent! Aaaaalll little kids and parents with kids...[etc. etc.]"

...
...
...
...

Whaaaaaaaat?!

I thought, "You...might've just lost 95% of the market's families. Good luck."

You're The Craziest Thing I've Seen

I biked to the farmer's market in my partner's paint-stained jeans (cuffs rolled up above my sock height), a cute t-shirt that I nevertheless work out in (Goodwill find), a fancy biking windbreaker, sunglasses, & a helmet. Yeah, I looked silly. But I didn't quite expect this conversation:

Other customer: And these?
Farmer: Those are chayote squash.
Other customer: So they're...
Farmer: A little more bitter
Me: Will you be selling chayote squash later on in the season? Do they grow here?
Farmer: No, the season's too short
Me: They don't ripen...okay.
Farmer: May I just say? ... ... You're the craziest thing I've seen [implied "at the market" or "today"]
Me: [good laugh]

A few minutes later a toddler stared at me despite his parents fussing over them, so it must have been true!!!

Peru

Peru's giving parts of the Amazon away again after claiming they were "rescinding" a "law" saying they were to start doing so. The President is kicking out all but his most "neoliberal" cabinet, it seems, and putting in even more people who agree w/ them. 2 leaders of indigenous people from Peru have just fled the country.

I do not see things getting better the way I envisioned 3 weeks ago. Probably not too late to put pressure to make things get better, either, but it ain't happening on its own. On its own, the very wealthy of Peru definitely seem to be consolidating a lot of power to do whatever the f*** they want. Grrr.

Thoughts While Watching "Bolivia"

I'm watching Bolivia right now (OMG, THANK YOU, family, for the online movie gift).

Thoughts:

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have the patience for such an indie-vibe movie if I weren't occupied by "studying" it (not quite the best word, but close?) Having to process written words (subtitles), thinking about whether I can hear the differences in accents even though I don't understand the language, etc. Trying to keep up w/ the subtleties of the plot through translation. I think I'd be like, "Geez Louise, get a camera trolley!!!" and be bored if it were in English.

I'm really disappointed in the protagonists. I don't quite identify with any of them, and I do feel a little let down. Don't know why.

1 peso for a cup of coffee on 15 pesos a day?! A cup of coffee at 1/15 of a day's wages? Admittedly, low wages, but getting paid only 15x the price of a cup of coffee?!?!?!

Why won't some people reach outside their own experiences and ask migrants about their own home situations? Yeah, customer-in-the-cafe, your life is troubled. But have you ASKED any of the migrants if they left a NON-TROUBLED life to come "make money" in "your country?" I mean, why be so un-empathetic as to just make up fantasy home lives for migrants and presume, WITHOUT ASKING, that they left a life that was of equal-but-no-worse misery to your life in Argentina? Geez Louise, ASK. Love. Connect. Partner. Live. Love. Or...I don't know...something. But stop being a jerk.

That's all for now. Other than...I want a...someting. Bowl of frozen strawberries? I don't know what. I think I'm really lonely--I should've picked a comedy!

Latin American & Carribbean Orphans, Part 2

I just wrote that I had thoughts, but no real ideas about interacting in a way that might do good w/ an agency that does some good work, but that I think might stop short. After all, I'm not a participant, and they don't make me want to be.

But I should ask them if they do in-family sponsorships. They have something kind of like that (they run a school & bathhouse & cafeteria for kids living with their families but in a garbage dump near one of their homes for orphans). But I wonder if the--or any other agencies--outside of "oh my gosh, they live in a GARBAGE DUMP" just put something like $30 a month towards all the same services that would be provided to orphans, but living w/ their families. The kinds of things the government here should be doing more of w/ our tax dollars. So maybe there, too. I don't know exactly what.

But it's a germ of a thought.

Latin American & Carribbean Orphans

At lunch I walked to buy some sticky rice to accompany the stir fry I brought to work.

I passed by a nonprofit that sets orphans in Latin American / Carribbean orphanages up with sponsors ($30/month). Not the worst idea in the world, but I was really put off by the parent-badmouthing they did on their posters. "Abandon," "abandon," "abandon." "Julia's mother fled a violent relationship with her and her two brothers. She abandoned them with their grandmother, but when their grandmother passed away, they became homeless. No trace of the mother or her whereabouts can be found."

And that's the one that at least told enough of the parent's justification for moving away without his/her child to make the parent sound reasonable. Most didn't!



I also wondered if their staff ever write "expert witness" (I know, crazy term...) letters or lobby against things like Plan Mexico, NAFTA, a lack of lifesaving trade preferences for countries they operate in, etc.

But I feel like I can't ask. I mean, I'm not going to sponsor one of those kids. Not with that organization's attitude coming through in their posters. (A hunch after reading Outsiders Within. I could be wrong.)

So if I'm not going to participate, well, it doesn't really feel right to come in as an outsider and say, "This would be really helpful to the world for you guys, with the position you have, to do!"

Conservative Clothing on Women

Sarkozy's mean comments I read here reminded me an analogy that suddenly occurred to me as I passed two women yesterday, one of whom was wearing an outfit that completely covered her face and the shape of her body.

Touch.

I feel private about most people in the world knowing, from experience, just exactly what it's like to feel me. And I think many people in my social circle have met people who don't even like a brief hug. Who feel like they want most people to have even less directly experienced idea of what they feel like.

But neither I nor those people want to be anonymous human beings in the world at large. We want people to know who we are! We do want people to know what we sound like! The more opinion-sharing of us want people to know what we think! When people's senses detect us, we want people to recognize who we are and what we sound like and all those things we've shared about ourselves (like what we think). It's just to certain ways of sensing us that we want to be unknown to most people.

And why? I can't speak for everybody, but for me, it's because I associate a certain amount of potential for inappropriate sexual vibe with people knowing what I feel like to the touch.

Maybe I can somehow make people like my mother (who's made mean comments to me about some women's conservative clothing) and Sarkozy get that just because someone also associates a certain amount of potential for innappropriate sexual vibe with people knowing what they look like to the eye doesn't mean that they're trying to be unknown and unrecognizeable/unrecognized to people's other senses.

(And with respect explaining to the gender division of people's clothing choices:
I think there's a sexual behavior double-standard in my culture that is wrong, and that men should be expected to be more sexually conservative than they are. But holding that belief myself doesn't mean I'm going to go out and act the way I see men expected to act. I'm still going to act as I think is best for all (men and women). So Mom, Sarkozy, etc: never assume presume to know a woman's ideas about the appropriateness of her culture's gendered clothing assignments just because she happens to wear more conservative clothing than men in her culture are expected to wear. Not unless you'd like to see me start sleeping around just to prove a philosophical point.)

Speak! CD Arrived Today

My Speak! CD arrived today.

Thank you, Speak! collective.

Honduran Congress Declared Major Parts Of Constution Null & Void

Holy ****, the Honduran Congress just declared the parts of Honduras's constitution that provide the following 5 rights null & void for the duration of an "emergency."

1. The right to protest.
2. Freedom in one's home from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest.
3. Freedom of association.
4. Guarantees of rights of due process while under arrest.
5. Freedom of transit in the country.

This is an emergency to Honduran people. (Except maybe the soldiers who do rulers' bidding and the favored rulers.)

Crap crap crap crap crap.

h/t nezua

Don't Let Cirila Baltazar Cruz Drop Off The Radar

Cirila Baltazar Cruz has dropped off the news and blog radar.

If you don't keep blogging, at least keep writing/calling!

Request for Action from the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA):

Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.

The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.

The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:

* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”

Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.

The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

Meanwhile, there is word in the Gulf Coast community that the “parents to be,” have already had a baby shower celebrating the “blessed arrival” of this STOLEN child!

PLEASE MAKE CALLS & WRITE LETTERS DEMANDING THE SAFE RETURN OF BABY & REUNITE WITH HER MOTHER

If you believe this is unjust and outrageous and goes against all moral and religious beliefs and values, please call or write to the presiding Judge and the MS Department of Human Services to STOP this ILLEGAL ADOPTION! Stealing US born babies from immigrant parents is a growing epidemic in the United States. Many Latino parents have lost their children this way!

Honorable Judge Sharon Sigalas
Youth Justice Court of Jackson County
4903 Telephone Rd.
Pascagoula, MS 39567
(228)762-7370

Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
Call (601)359-4499 and ask for Barbara Proctor

For more information please call MIRA at: (601) 968-5182

MIRA Organizing Coordinator
Victoria Cintra at (228) 234-1697 or Organizer Socorro Leos at(228) 731-0831

http://www.nnirr.org/action/index.php?op=read&id=229&type=0

Disparate Impact At Work And On The Highways

What a lousy day for hoping to reduce disparate negative impact on not-privileged communities of people.

1. First we've got the Supreme Court saying that you can only magically predict, by squinting your eyes really hard and concentrating, during the "test design" phase of employee promotion test design whether or not that test will have disparate impact. If the results of actually trying it out on your employees show that you designed it wrong, no starting over! You have to keep using it!



2. Then there's bad news I got on getting disparate impact considered in transportation offices around here.
   
   
   • It's easy to figure out the racial & income composition of houses & businesses that're sitting on the ground, standing still in a neighborhood. And it's precedented, when thinking about building a brand new highway through a previously unbroken neighborhood, to presume that people moving on that highway's general occupancy lanes will have roughly average racial & income composition.
     
     It's both easy and precedented to calculate what income & racial composition a highway (presumed average-composition) would take quality of life away from in this situation.
   
   
   
   
   • But it's harder to get the racial & income composition of people moving on an existing highway's bus-only lane. And it sounds like you'd have to convince a lot of engineers and geographers and managers and other functionaries that it could be good enough math (good enough to at least run the calculations once and see what you get, anyway) to make the presumption of "roughly average" racial & income composition in an existing highway's general occupancy lanes. For some reason, for this comparison, you might have to talk them out of the idea that they'd have to first measure such things to see if it actually works out to "roughly average."
     
     Which means that it's neither easy nor precedented to calculate what income & racial composition it would take quality of life away from to convert bus-only lanes to general occupancy lanes.
   
   *sigh*
   
   Not to mention, as I've heard is usual, people considered about disparate negative impact (in this case, me) are waaaaaaaaaaaay behind the bureaucratic process.
   
   I finally got a phone number and had this conversation today--about a year after I heard that the process might be influenceable. And now it's not really. The only factors they're considering (TOTAL number of bodies getting down the highway, safety in number of crashes vs. where to go when you crash, etc.) are so far "considered" that they're in final report stage.
   
   Crap.

I'm not sure whether to push to get what I consider important considered by the departments in charge of this highway segment.

And what I REALLY am at a loss for, not having much activist experience, is who to reach out to for advice. Super-experienced transportation justice advocates from all over the country? Local bus riders who don't have any more lick of experience than me, one at a time, on my bus?

(Would love advice if you have any. Thank you!)

Good Strawberries

If I die a slow, miserable death of cancer because I gorged myself on pesticide-covered, most-strawberry-flavored-that-a-strawberry-can-get strawberries each June, I might just have to call it a wash. Or even a win.

Because damn, do these strawberries taste good. I thought they might when I saw them at the market. I suspect they might've even been picked at the crack of dawn this morning. Maybe that's why they taste so good.

I go HUNTING each June for a vendor selling strawberries this good. I hit it today.

I don't think strawberries taste as good once they're covered in water...and I didn't have the heart to ask the farmer if her strawberries had been sprayed at any point. We didn't have much to share, so I wanted to share my joy about buying strawberries, not my worrying questions.

So here I go, eating a quart and a half of unwashed strawberries in an hour. (All right, I might puke for non-pesticide-related reasons.)

But they're the best flavor strawberries can ever have.

So I'll just love life right this moment and have someone dig up this journal and remind me of every June's strawberry season in my life if bad times come later.

I love everything.

Call To Action: Demand Mississippi Reunite Mother & Baby Daughter!

BFP broke the story into my sphere.
BA sliced my heart, which helped me act:

Poor women shouldn't have anything rich people want.

including children.

PLEASE DO THIS:

Request for Action from the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA):

Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.

The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.

The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:

* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”

Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.

The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

Meanwhile, there is word in the Gulf Coast community that the “parents to be,” have already had a baby shower celebrating the “blessed arrival” of this STOLEN child!

PLEASE MAKE CALLS & WRITE LETTERS DEMANDING THE SAFE RETURN OF BABY & REUNITE WITH HER MOTHER

If you believe this is unjust and outrageous and goes against all moral and religious beliefs and values, please call or write to the presiding Judge and the MS Department of Human Services to STOP this ILLEGAL ADOPTION! Stealing US born babies from immigrant parents is a growing epidemic in the United States. Many Latino parents have lost their children this way!

Honorable Judge Sharon Sigalas
Youth Justice Court of Jackson County
4903 Telephone Rd.
Pascagoula, MS 39567
(228)762-7370

Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
Call (601)359-4499 and ask for Barbara Proctor

For more information please call MIRA at: (601) 968-5182

MIRA Organizing Coordinator
Victoria Cintra at (228) 234-1697 or Organizer Socorro Leos at(228) 731-0831

What I ran into and what I was able to do:

I got forwarded to a voicemail (note--the names on that machine aren't Honorable Judge Sigalas's name--but I was told it's the correct machine) at 228-762-7370 and left a message, rambling as it was, stating reasons I didn't think Ms. Baltazar Cruz's case was abuse or neglect and thought she must be allowed to raise her baby.

Someone asked who was calling for Ms. Proctor at 601-359-4499, and I gave my name but said she wasn't expecting a call. Then I was asked what I was calling about, and I said I wanted to weigh in on the issue of Ms. Baltazar Cruz's baby. She said they'd "already received calls" on that and were "working on" it. At that I asked if I could simply leave a message--that I thought Ms. Baltazar Cruz's baby should be returned to her--and asked if I could have that message taken down. She said okay to that.

Laundry Will Be Done!

The good news is, I wrote this post 30 minutes ago, so w/ the energy I now have from being back up, I'm going to get off the computer & go put away at least some of the laundry. I hope I'll do all of it. Go!

Journal On A Warm Night

It's hot. Dusk. Body says sleep--sun says not quite yet. Plus it's hot. I haven't turned on the fan--though I have gotten my clothes off.

It's not that hot. It'd be easy to sleep outside, and I'll probably fall asleep once I get the fan on.

I had a thought about my pale, squishy flesh and lifestyle and "adapted to" vs. "perfectly capable of" vs. "a result of." And, like, close-to-nudity outside, daytime vs. nighttime, or something. It's why I grabbed paper & pencil to start writing thoughts. But I forgot it.

Now I've gotten up to get a scrunchie for bed & turn on the fan & lie back down, even though I really should've put away laundry while I was up. I'm on an overworked person's side of the bed. I should be clearing off mine.