Everyone but the Devil means well

Proust's Parlor Game

2010-03-22T15:37:00.002-04:00

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire.

1.What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2.What is your greatest fear?
3.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5.Which living person do you most admire?
6.What is your greatest extravagance?
7.What is your current state of mind?
8.What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9.On what occasion do you lie?
10.What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11.Which living person do you most despise?
12.What is the quality you most like in a man?
13.What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14.Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15.What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16.When and where were you happiest?
17.Which talent would you most like to have?
18.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19.What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20.If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21.Where would you most like to live?
22.What is your most treasured possession?
23.What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24.What is your favorite occupation?
25.What is your most marked characteristic?
26.What do you most value in your friends?
27.Who are your favorite writers?
28.Who is your hero of fiction?
29.Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30.Who are your heroes in real life?
31.What are your favorite names?
32.What is it that you most dislike?
33.What is your greatest regret?
34.How would you like to die?
35.What is your motto? "

Google is Dead

2010-02-26T10:48:00.002-05:00

"Google is dead, long live google."

I am starting a new blog, it is at paxus.wordpress.com

There are lots of reasons why, one of them being it is good to maintain a diverse internet eco-system and not have all ones stuff under the google banner (blogspot/blogger is a google brand).

Come check me out over at my new house, which promises to be a proper superset of this blog from now on. Not exactly sure what (or if) i will use this one for.

Oh the theme of the new blog is that your passport to complaining, is your willingness to do something about it.

Fear and Arrogance

2010-02-24T23:01:00.004-05:00

"I think you are trying to gangster in on my community" My stern faced comrade from East Wind was not joking with me. I have been called many things, but not this before.

There are many legitimate concerns. We said we were going to bring 6 people, and 10 arrived - impacting food and social space. We brought the architects into the music room (which is an important social center) in the middle of the day to look topological map on the wall, and people felt run over and intruded on. Some of the personalities that we brought on the trip are a bit tricky and some East Winders bristled at them. We were late in posting the description of the project and the proposed lease. We had not figured out a way to compensate kitchen for our additional meals. And of course the one which was toughest to hear "And you ran over Acorn with this project last year."

Toughest for me to hear, because the stumbled relationship with Acorn was the one thing i was most determined to fix at East Wind. It is why we brought Sara out to live here well before the event to give the community clear signals about what was happening.

And what several people would tell me about my East Wind critic was that they would never trust me because of my arrogance. So i went to the community meeting fearful, this was only one of a number of people who have concerns and there was a small chance that the project would get derailed and a much larger chance that East Wind would be far less generous and careful in ways that decreased the chance of the events success.

Sara and i agreed in advance that i would say as little as i could possibly. It is critical that the community see us as peers, and that some of the prejudices be removed by showing the power balance as it is, rather than what people suspect it might be. I helped create this problem because of my initial funding of the project.

Sara was brilliant. Reflected concerns, was earnest in her willingness to work with everyone, was funny and accessible, was clever in pointing out synergies.

But far more important, the overwhelming response to the project was positive still, even after this suite of small mistakes. No personal attacks on my running over the local culture, no one really even said "we need to reconsider this project". Many powerful voices in the community spoke in favor of the project. Zeke who had been our principal contact, Kara Jo the finance manager, Quinn who has been helping us with the neighbors and community relations (and presented the project proposal he importantly fixed for us), Matthew and Yellow Sun spoke of VIS help forestry, Kris was excited to build the artificial limbs. It was clear East Winders want this to happen.

We are off the ground. There are a million things to do still, but we are flying.

Facebook Greens and Blues

2010-02-03T00:04:00.009-05:00

"i love facebook" Feonix is delighted. The cute guy from the previous nights party has accepted her friend request and they are flirting on line and over SMS. "Before facebook i would have had to ask for his number which would have seemed a bit pushy or asked one of his other friends there, where would have felt a little weird. With Facebook i can just go to a mutual friend and find him and ask and he i quite likely to say yes."

My whirlwind visits in Death City, Baltimore and Philadelphia wasw winding up and i needed to get back home. I am often terrible at these types of logistics, leaving them to the last minute. This time i was proud to call the cab company over an hour before i needed to be at the Philly 30th street train station. Only to find that because of the snow, cabs were taking as long as two hours to arrive. i run into the streets of Philly and immediately get turned around and lost and i spring down a dozen blocks to hail a cab who fortunately was an Indy 500 refugee who got me to the station in record time. In Death City i walk to the Greyhound station w/ ticket confirmation number in hand. Only to find out that all the evening buses have been cancelled.

So i go back to Union stations, only to find the next train south is not til the late morning - it is basically 2 AM i have no place to stay and the usual suspects (Beth, Rez and Heather) are all asleep now. So i pull out the new netbook Zappa and fire up Facebook on the AT&T free wifi at the station.

Facebook reveals after some searching that ex-visitor Sarah is in Death City, online and willing to have me sleep on her couch. Turns out she was playing scrabble with a friend in a different time zone. i hail a cab (subways are down and the night buses are rare) and in 15 minutes i am climbing into a couch with a sleeping bag she provided. Far nicer than the sleeping in the station. Sarah is friendly and happy to see me, we have not been in touch for a year.

Winter is the time for dramas in the community. We dont have live television and fairly predictably when we are cooped up inside cold for several month stuff starts to come up. This winter a depressed member admitted that they had considered to hurting themselves when they were in the pit of their depression. The also wrote a bunch of stuff on facebook which was not flattering of their mental state.

We had a sharing circle this evening to talk about members feelings, not to make decisions, just to get hurt, fear, surprise, compassion, confusion out in a public space. Hawina called it and facilitated it. It went really well. At this particular one, the focus person was not present, they will get to hear a (likely less charged) version on Friday. I think the sharing circle went well.

In response to members being worried about his depressed facebook comments, this member decided to delete their facebook account. This will cause it's own problems, one person is already saying "it is deleting evidence." but most Oaks feel like it is theirs to keep or delete as they like.

To paraphrase the man behind me in line at the Indian Consulate (who said this of India).

"You will love facebook, or you will hate it or you will both love it and hate it - no one is ambivalent about facebook."

Jail to home Culture Shock

2010-01-16T19:17:00.009-05:00

Out of Jail

Upon returning to Twin Oaks Cameron asked me

"How was jail?"

i quipped "i'd rather be in jail than in a bad community meeting." Which is actually true, but a bit beside the point.

The food was horrible (as in - skip meals for variety), my blanket was too small, the TV was on more than half of the day (even after "lights out" which i found weird), the poor mattress gave me a sore back, the cell was uncomfortably cold, the only natural light in the huge cell came from a handful of long thin windows too high off the floor to look thru, there were 60 guys in my cell, there was basically no privacy, i could not leave the single room cell block for 45 hours, my ride to get home was hours late, the police stopped me when i tried to hitch from the jail, there were a number of felons in K block with serious charges against them. And the overall experience was great.

i got lucky. For what ever reason they decided to place me in the trusterdy cell block (which is block K at the Central Virgina Regional Jail). This means most of the people in the cell are working in the jail - laundry, cooking, cleaning the building. Most do this to reduce their time. If you are sentenced to a year on a misdemeanor charge, you only serve 6 months. If you work while you are there you can cut it in half again. Most cell bock K inmates have a vested interest in not screwing up their shrinking jail time with petty disagreements with the likes of me. This made the initial experience fairly comfortable. I intentionally arrived exhausted and had not trouble falling asleep shortly after arriving at the cell block.

I see jail as an unintentional community where the cottage industry is killing time. I got wiped out in chess, had a number of good conversations with inmates (including a very spooky one where an inmate guessed i was from Twin Oaks right after guessing i was from Louisa), i had no trouble sleeping a lot (noise does not bother me much), and i dont fear going back for a longer time if that is what is needed at some point for some pending campaign.

For me, going to jail is emotionally similar to hitchhiking. Before i go i am worried about it, present to my fear of all the bad things that might happen. Then i do it and remember why i went, the kinds of connections you dont find elsewhere, what it means to trust people you dont know who could be slightly dangerous. And in the end i find myself feeling better about humanity than before i went.

i also think in ways that i dont normally about my life and choices in jail. I wrote 17 love letters. And i was unusually well rested.

"So are you going to do it again?" Jeff is the first guy in K block who shares his name with me. I assure him i am not retiring from non-violent civil disobedience

"You do it for your beliefs?" He wants it to be true and his appreciation is why i need to be in this large institutional room every so often. We speak briefly between Jerry Springer vignettes.

Jail is an almanac of sad stories. Jeff was doing 12 months for failure to pay child support. His son is 25 years old and he had not heard from the child support people in 10 years. He was actually negotiating w/ his son to give him a car loan. Jeff went to church w/ his new girl friend, his ex-wife got upset, called child support and relatively quickly and quite unexpectedly he found himself in jail. There are 200 dead beat dads in this facility, which is around 1/3 of the total population. But Jeff says the law will likely change in Virginia to garnish wages instead of put people in prison seems wise and late. [Another half the jail population is combined drunk driving and drug possession (mostly marijuana) - hardly hardened criminals]

There are lots of small gifts and favors in this cell block community. I was offered shower sandals three times in the first three hours in jail by different people, i finally accepted a pair and started wearing them, just to stop the offers. Every time i was asleep at the start of a meal (breakfast at 4:30 AM) someone would wake me and not wait to be thanked. No food is wasted, so even when i skipped a meal i got a tray of food and gave it to other prisoners - there was little trading and lots of gifting.

I got out fairly quickly and regretted not stealing the gray stripped jail jump suit, which mysteriously had 8 snaps down the front, but only 4 clasps to connect them to inside. Some strange jail house style or budgets cuts or something. The jump suit would have been a great costume for me "get out of jail" party. i borrowed a tight fitting yellow one from Christian instead and it had a completely different effect.

The jail is quite hard to find. Pele had three sets of directions and could not find it and almost everything was closed so their were few people to ask. In all fairness, Trina and i got lost dropping me at the jail and Caroline and Keyvah had a hard time finding it when i first landed there. No sign, no street number, it is basically hidden. So i decided to hitchhike and as soon as i stuck out my thumb a cop pulled in behind me. And he said the best thing a cop has ever said to me as his first words.

"Your not in trouble." i wish every cop would start this way. I am hitching directly across the street from the jail so he has to check to make sure that there are no warrants out for me as a possible escapee. But once we establish this, he is happy to give me a ride a few miles down the road towards Twin Oaks, from where Sparkle is being dispatched to rescue me. My driver cop worked the longest 29 months of his life in my jail, he was happy to have moved on, tho his wife still runs the medical program at the jail.

Thru a classic cell phone game Sparkle and i coordinated our approach to each other and after 3 miles of walking. we meet and i got swooped up, i might have saved him 20 minutes of driving and i got some exercise (pacing the cell made me feel like a caged rat) and re-established that hitching is fading in amerika.

i returned home and Trout and others had organized a "get out of jail" party for me and it was amazing. We talked about A grade parties, parties which changed peoples lives. This was at least an A- and Trout claims higher. Winter came out as Autumn in drag and the pictures will show off this metamorphosis. There were certainly sparky romantic moments as well in the upstairs Tupelo North Wing LR augmented by Trouts perfectly designed room for an additional 12 to 15 partiers on his bed, couch and soft floor.

We established that A+ parties are ones that are remembered, oft named (like the fuzzy tunnels party) and mark changes in the local culture or world view (like the make out party in the cuddle loft where several guys kissed other guys for the first time in their lives).

We played a modified version of ImaginIFF my new favorite game, especially good for finding intimate insights. Michael was a subliminal msg, both Firefly and Moss were time bombs, i was a nuke. i can't do it justice here, it is quite funny.

We danced, we flirted, we rubbed feet, we were serenaded, we laughed. Trout got a whole bunch of my types of things to consume - girly drinks, mixed fruit juices, chips and salsa and fruit salad. Sparkle and Biddy were stunning in drag. And Autumn was tantalizingly hot.

So i swung from a morning of boredom and jail to an evening of memorable celebrations. And i would trade none of it.

Off to jail for two days

2010-01-14T13:42:00.004-05:00

After much waiting, I've finally been sentenced for my trespassing charges in connection with the 2008 Southeast Climate Convergence. Twenty people demonstrated at the information center for Dominion Power's North Anna nuclear facility and six of us were arrested for peacefully refusing to leave the property. Most everyone else got off with fines and community service, but being identified as the ring leader, the Virginia Commonwealth Attorney was hoping the jury would give me months in jail--even though the original sentence I was appealing was just two weeks.

But the jury was not interested in draconian punishments and seemed sympathetic. Instead of months, I got five days in jail and I'll serve two. It's a complicated math--you only serve half your sentence for misdemeanors and I'd already served a day when I was arrested. So it all starts today and I'll be free again on Saturday.

Lot's of people have asked how they can support me while I'm in jail--offers of demonstrating against my incarceration and informing the public of it being not uncommon. But, if you really want to support me, help push along the projects that are really important to me.

Go to www.villagesinthesky.org read what we're up to and make comments, start discussions.
Go to www.brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects and vote three times for Villages in the Sky by tomorrow--Friday the 15th
Check out the article published about my sentencing at www.tinyurl.com/paxinjail and post comments
Or just leave a comment here

It turns out the revolution is an elaborate dialogue. Don't mourn, organize.

"it's impossible"

2009-12-11T03:29:00.003-05:00

Andy, Sara and i left East Wind this afternoon to drive the thousand miles back east. Last night we had our last Villages in Sky meeting and got the survey initial survey results. 15 out of 16 as Winders felt good about the project, including a number of long time members and heavy hitters. i'm happy.

In the car today we finished the Phantom Tollbooth and again dramatically with poetic demons on his heals the ordinary kid Milo manages to rescue the banished princesses Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason (depicted above). Sara was bemused by my flood of tears as i read the last couple dozen pages in Shana's Subaru flying across Indiana.

The central msg is that the quest was impossible, but they succeeded anyway and i have a bit this feeling with everything from festival organizing to the negotiations in Copenhagen. We might pull it off, but if you were a betting person, you would not be putting money on us. Fortunately, that is not the crowd i seem to be hanging with these days.

Newspapers unite on Copenhagen significance

2009-12-08T00:09:00.003-05:00

This is a fairly strong statement on climate change agreed to by 56 newspapers from 40 countries around the world in 20 languages. Many of these papers, including the Guardian fromt he UK (which drafted the piece) printed this editorial on the front page. Check it out

http://tinyurl.com/newspapersoncopenhagen

a couple of the better paragraphs

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

East Wind Versus Twin Oaks

2009-12-06T21:06:00.004-05:00

Part of the Villages in the Sky organizing team (Sara, Paxus and Bean) have traveled off to East Wind which will be hosting the event for a week of site inspection, meetings and negotiations. The community has been very welcoming, despite some quite difficult times they are going thru. One young member has just found that he has inoperable brain cancer which is growing very fast - he is only 25. The FDA is requiring a whole host of safety improvements and additional paperwork for their nut butters business (this is part of a trend across the food industry and Twin Oaks Tofu business will likely have to make similar expensive upgrades as a function of the soon to be passed Food Safety Act which is designed by the huge food processing corporations like Kraft).

T

There have been lots of interesting late night
conversations since we have been here and of course one of the things which comes up often is the differences between Twin Oaks and East Wind. Last night Les (who was a member at both Acorn and Twin Oaks before moving out to East Wind) put it well. "Twin Oaks is more of a socialist/communist orientation and East Wind is more anarchist. TO is burdened with the bureaucracy of these political systems, but pretty reliably stuff gets done. East Wind offers its members significant freedoms and often that comes at the cost of unfinished projects and important work going undone."

The more i thought about what Les said the more i realized how big these differences were. East Wind has no labor budgets. There is Industrial Quota (which is income generating work, which means mostly Nut Butters, tho it could be Utopia Sandals) but this is just a handful of hours each week. Members at both communities are responsible for making quota (which i think is 40 at East Wind and 42 at Twin Oaks now).

At Twin Oaks we agonize over labor budgets. Keyvah has recently worked with the Planners on the Trade Off Game and spent dozens of hours pouring over managers requests for labor, previous years actual labor use, cutting budget requests to make it all balance in a tight economy. East Wind does none of this. [Both communities budget money by area fairly carefully.]

At Twin Oaks we have a very complete and complex labor scheduling system (which i love) - another function of our highly organized bureaucracy. At East Wind many members walk up in the morning unsure exactly what they will do that day to make quota. Both communities have survived for decades, both have survived hard times and difficult members (tho i do think East Wind has more tricky personalities than Twin Oaks does).

It is my hope that Villages in the Sky will bring these two communities a bit closer together. We are like sisters who have more in common than different yet we focus (like this entry) on what is different about us.

If you are interested in more information about the Villages in the Sky project you should check out the website and blog.

Keyvah and Caroline get hitched !

2009-11-21T14:03:00.003-05:00

One of my big attractions to Twin Oaks is that it is a place which inspires people to do things that other people are not even thinking about doing. To do things which some people think are impossible or at least incomprehensible. Caroline and Keyvah are doing such a thing today. Pairs of women get hitched all the time these days, but like their heterosexual counterparts, their primary motivation is their romantic connection to each other and secondary is their desire to have family together.

Both of these amazing women are key players in my son, Willow's life. And as only a parent can, i see their influence on him, Caroline's theatrics in the quirky YouTube videos they make together, Keyvah's "bored kid does complex math" tricks. And in a kind of spooky transference, Willow now seems to be able to tell when i am going to leave the room, moments before i actually get up and go - an art Caroline and Keyvah perfected sometime back.

And through this unorthodox home schooling they have built something Caroline coined "Framily". A fusion of friends and family. It turns out that the Nigerian proverb is right and it takes a village to raise a kid. But unlike the politicians and educators who spout this phrase i have seen it happen with my son and these wonderful women and our fluidly designed framily.

And i am excited to be on this journey with them and know they will help guide their own extraordinary kids.

Compost Cafe Micro Party

2009-11-08T22:22:00.007-05:00

There was an irreversible turning point. And this is what funologists hunt.

Sabrina had been dragged away from reading her book to come to the party which was happening in the compost cafe (the small smokers lounge in the courtyard of the community). Firefly got her, apparently promising there was dancing. What there was was a lovely collection of mostly young people and mostly oakers. The few outsiders were Adam who had lived at East Wind and is well liked and appreciated here and Sara Tansey who seems to have nearly everyone fall in love with her nearly everywhere she goes.

"There is not even any dancing. You got me out of bed for this?" Sabrina complains in a whine that is so uncharacteristic of her normal stoic nature, the universe tilts.

"We absolutely did" replies Shiloh and within a minute almost all the room is standing and Sparkles ipod shuffle has taken over the sound system and dancing ensues.

Trout is anxious for another game of chess with me, when the music tones down a bit he asks if i am willing to leave the party. But i can not "This is a funologists wet dream" i say, certain that i will be misunderstood and mocked. And immediately i am.

But what makes it so funologically important is that it is a nearly perfect party, intimate, intense, highly inexpensive (accepted visitor Hale - who is tall and Nordic and charming and 27 - bought a case of cheap Mexican beer and one of Miller high life), spontaneous, simple/elegant and triggered.

But from this funologist perspective it may be triggered that is the most important piece. The talking and minimal milling and cuddling/massaging before the dance portion was nice. but what brought up the energy and added enchantment was the dancing. Bean, Firefly, Louisa, Foxx, Rusty, Sara, Shiloh, Jason (unusually), Trout, Sabrina and Mushroom make a strikingly telegenic lot bogeying. Biddy, Benji, Andy, Hale and i were more peripheral to the dancing, yet somehow holding the space for the others. And there is no way film can catch this tight, tangled event. Despite how crowded it is the group does not want to move to larger space - moving would break something and the compressed space gives it an added air of impossibility.

We are, in fact, building the better party.

Danele's Passing

2009-11-01T21:37:00.004-05:00

Six years ago a specialist told Danele, who had just been diagnosed with Cushing's disease, that she had six months to live. Danele was having none of it.

A couple weeks ago Danele passed. Shiloh and Kate, who were part of the team which took care of her in her last days, said that she was the funniest and liveliest she had ever been in those last days. [When Kate offered her a straw to help her drink, replied "nothing says invalid like a straw."]

Danele and i were lovers in the first year i was at Twin Oaks, over a decade ago now. i was given back all the love letters i wrote her yesterday, a little stack of carefully scripted cards, chronicling our unlikely connection.

We had the memorial service for Danele today here at Twin Oaks. She would have been pleased. i managed to miss most of the event because i got up early and rescued a bunch of folding chairs from a rocking church in Richmond in the pouring rain and ended up restarting my illness. [i do sick badly, so i do it little.]

What i will remember of Danele is her fierce loyalty, her expansive heart, the silky scarfs she always carried, her quirky wit, her adventurous spirit and her tenacity.

Farewell Allen

2009-10-21T21:07:00.006-04:00

About a week back a new member of Twin Oaks, Allen, took his life. He had wrestled with depression for much of his adult life and his mother said at the community sharing circle that "Twin Oaks had been the happiest month and a half of his life."

The morning before he took his life i was in the tofu hut with Mushroom and in one of those rare moments when there is no one else there but the lone kettle person and the lone trays person she said to me. "Who do you think is the sexiest person on campus?"

"Allen" was my immediately response. He was quiet, diligent, attractive, musical, mechanically inclined. I had hooked him up with ex-member Denny Ray to help with the communities perennial problem of equipment maintenance. They had fixed the Llano refrigerator together and Denny had been impressed by his quick learning and eagerness. They were working on the ice machine together the day he passed.

16 years ago this community was torn apart by Delancies suicide. It was the last one we had and it was completely different. Unlike Allen, there was lots of warning. Unlike Allen there were many who felt the community could have done more. Unlike Allen there were many who were furious with other members perceived insensitivity to mental health problems. Unlike Allen, half a dozen people left and McCune quit work for a year (something our labor system permits for people who have sufficient balance to do so).

Allen's death is a gift to us. We pull together. We support each other. Many people, especially Louisa, his lover of 9 years, are saying "it is this type of support that is the reason i moved to community". In fact the most powerful msg from our sharing circles and healing rituals is "i dont want to go back to normal"
What we want instead is a place where someone can be crying in public space, without anyone feeling put out by it or drawn into it against their will.

Christian was holding and comforting Bridget in the Tupleo Kitchen. I was in there with WIllow who was being noisy and lively. There was a whole mini-circus that passed before the mourners. When we are at our best, we integrate our sadness and our daily lives.

And his death is a challenge to us. How do maintain some piece of this incredible support we are offering each other. How do we maintain this transparency, this willingness to speak our personal truths. I learned of several peoples struggles with suicide as part of this process. i joined the care team for one of the people today, who i care for and was unaware of their struggle. Allen has helped us shine a healing light on ourselves and now we want to figure out how to keep it shining.

if we are really good, we will find the switch for that light. and if we can i am sure Allen would be proud of us.

Designing Rituals that Stick

2009-09-27T01:23:00.004-04:00

My funological comrades and I are in a conversation about what the “central ritual” will be at the Villages in the Sky festival in the Ozarks in 2010. Central rituals play important roles in two of the inspirational events for VIS – Burning Man and the Rainbow Gathering.

At Burning Man there are actually two central rituals. The first (on the Saturday night) is the burning of the man. A 40 foot high effigy is set alight amongst dozens of fire dancers and a host of fireworks displays. Participants run in circles around the burning man and make incredible noise. Crystal actually does not think this is a ritual at all, he prefers to refer to it as “the spectacle” and it certainly is that.

On Sunday night the temple is burned. The temple is further out, and actually much larger overall It is made entirely of wood and is an incredibly intricate art piece. On it participants scribble what ever it is they want to let go of, often sadness about a loved one who passed in the last year (or anytime really). In sharp contrast to the burn of the man, this is a highly somber and quiet. Up close, both of these rituals are physically quite hot. They are also magnificent enuf so that they can be enjoyably viewed from a fairly significant distance.

At the Rainbow Gathering the central ritual mixes noise and quite. Part of the site selection for the part of the national parks which hosts these gatherings is that they need to have a space (for the national gatherings) which can accommodate 25,000 people standing in a large circle holding hands. For the first half of the fourth of July, rainbow kids (some of whom are in their 80s) are silent, doing their daily chores, heading toward a mid day gathering which comes together in a large silent circle. After some length of time which seems cosmologically determined, the kids run into the middle yelling and this is the signal for everyone to run in. Much dancing and partying ensues.

We will have tree houses and zip lines and hopefully turbine platforms as our environment. Presumably, there will be an open field to operate in, and n year one only a few hundred participants. And I believe that this ritual, and its power and effect on people will be one of the things which determines how many people come back for year 2 and beyond.

So I am in dialog with my new lover Premin, who lives in a spiritual resort which used to be a spiritual commune about what gives ritual life and bond people with them. She said these clever things:

The real important thing about ritual is, that it is not a ritual. that it is alive in every moment, that it makes sense, that it takes people into account, and when it doesn’t feel right or fitting any more, it can be changed. It grows with the moment, with the people. It takes presence, and not routine.

Culture Follies

2009-09-24T14:04:00.004-04:00

For those of you who have tuned in late, i am a bit of an odd duck.

The other day i was in Boston helping Keyvah and Gpaul and Benji (a charming newish Oaker) set up for the Natural Food Expo at the convention center. Keyvah has a strange addiction to fancy hotels, so we were staying in the Omni Paker House right downtown.

I have trouble talking quietly on a cell phone, so Keyvah had thrown me out of the room while i was chatting about the Testival (test festival) we are organizing for the tree house launch at Acorn. So i went into the hallway at the Omni on the 8th floor and parked myself in front of the elevators.

i did not even think about it a laydown on the super clean hotel floor with my head propped up against the wall, in my slightly strange shorts and continued talking on the phone. My position looked something like the picture below (without the hat and not asleep).

For perhaps 20 minutes no one comes out of the elevator, but then 2 older couples emerge decked out in very nice clothes having an animated conversation. They are clearly a bit shcoked by my presene and position. i ignore them and continue blabbing.

About 5 minutes later a hotel security guy comes out of the elevator, looking for me. He starts with a confrontive manner, clearly a bit unsure of how to deal with the situation. But he quickly notices i have a hotel key in my hand, and he chills a bit.

He instructs me that you cant lay on the floor in this hotel. i am slightly disbelieving, but he assures me this is so. he then points to the collection of perfectly reasonable chairs which are less than 5 meters away from me and asks if i could continue my phone call from there.

i cave to the pressure and sit in one of the plush chairs.

Arguing with Willow

2009-09-16T08:34:00.004-04:00

Part of the communities agreements is that children will do small amounts of work for the collective good. The amount they are asked to do is based on age and for a 7 year old, only here part time (because Willow spends part of each week in Cville with Sky) is one hour per week. Next year it will be two hours per week.

For a while we often did part of Willow's quota in the hammock shop. He was getting pretty good at winding shuttles and toddling them over to the welding station. But the economy and our own inability to market hammocks swept the business and now the hammock shop is nearly closed. Hawina has been having Willow do a bit of food processing (where we preserve our harvest for later in the year) and he has been unloading the dishwashers are Tupelo and MorningStar. While we continue to seek places to find labor credits for him.

We had an argument about it yesterday.

Our clothes were up to dry outside MorningStar and Willow and i were taking them down. "You can take labor credits for this." i replied casually. "No i cant." replied my clever son. "These are our clothes and not community clothes" And i realized he understood the system better than i had given him credit for. Indeed, normally one can not take labor credits for work which just benefits ones self.

I explained to Willow that there was actually a policy which gave members labor credits for drying their own clothes on the line, instead of using a dryer to save electricity and money for the community. He was having none of it.

"Can i get labor credits for taking down our own laundry?" Willow asked Hawina, skeptical of my claims. Hawina explained about the perhaps passed eco-laundry labor credits. But i could tell it was not sitting well with Willow. "You should not get labor credits for doing your own stuff." i could see him thinking.

When i was 7, i had quite some notion of family, and some vague notion about states and countries. But i had nothing like the sense of fairness and equity that my small partner seems to have developed.

Just one question

2009-09-12T08:39:00.002-04:00

Burning Man was quite the bust this year. We had an amazing team and an interesting project to hype. But dear friends were caught up in this crazy sting/entrapment escapade and much of our energy was defused in getting them sprung.

Ironically, with all the amazing art and bizarre contraptions on the Playa, the best part of this years Burning Man for me was a set of conversations i had with my dear friend Crystal which could have just as easily be held in a Santa Cruz coffee shop.

Crystal wants to build an international camp at next years burn. US nationals could participate, but everyone who is there must pass a short admissions test, which is in it's entirety the question "Are you a revolutionary?"

Armada

2009-08-27T00:14:00.003-04:00

There are 17 people at East Wind (including 3 on their way) who will be deploying the Villages in the Sky Burning Man equipment. After a Herculean effort, we finally found an affordable truck to carry all the stuff (thanks Keyvah, yeah Sara). It is an impressive array of stuff:

1) Circus/Revival tent 20' but 60'
2) A Healix tower with two wind turbines on the top
3) A mobile kitchen
4) A small tent village
5) a somewhat undefined collection of vehicles

We are at 6:45 and Fossil. If you are coming to Burning Man you should definitely stop by and especially for the funological brainstorm and naming party on Friday at dusk.

This is getting exciting.

And yesterday East Wind approved the hosting of the Villages in the Sky festival in June 2010. We have a home, at least for a couple of years.

Night Owls

2009-08-14T13:02:00.008-04:00

On my way to the Yaffa Cafe (where Tobias and i are now geeking) this morning i asked myself "Why am i going there?"

There are 2 bazillion great places it eat in NYC. It appears that industrial capitalism, which i dont have much good to say about, really works for Manhattan - the average restaurant is better than the national average, by a lot. In this hyper competitive/information rich environment only the great survive.

It is not the charming wait staff, who rolled with it when i said "if you touch that i will hurt you" when the waitress tried to take my nearly empty plate.

The mock leopard skin chair covers and table designs are cute, but actually i had not noticed them before today.

No, it is that it is open all night, every night. Of course it is not at all a strange for Manhattan and i am not currently using this feature, because it is the middle of the day. But i want to support outfits which keep the odd hours i do.

My big complaint about most of the cities i love (Am*dam, San Francisco, even Berlin) is that they roll up the streets between midnight and 2 AM. What is up with that ? i want to be in the city (which as Mz DiFranco calls it) "never shuts up".

We have had amazing hosts in the 3 Burroughs we have inhabited. Teagan and Arrow in Manhattan have put up with a parade of organizers and activists which i seem to hang with these days. Teagan fell in love with Sara (this is easy to do, everyone seems to these days). She seems unstoppable despite being gloriously pregnant. Arrow was immeasurable help with the dozens of details associated with the Villages in the Sky camp at Burning Man. [I have been a few times, but i have never been involved with setting up a real camp before]. He has also agreed to be on the board of directors for our shell company International Funological Initiative Limited, which is something of a relief for me, because he is experience in both big festival organizing and clean fuels.

Diana threw parties, hosted workshops and was stunningly available for our many needs. I want every lawyer in america to be just like her. In fact, if every lawyer were just like her, i would be so out of a job. Just a few steps from the Williamsburg bridge, Diana brought Brooklyn to life and hosted of us in her tiny flat and panoramic roof. And connected us with her lively collection of rad artists, activists and troublemakers.

George at Ganas was gone for most of our visit but i did get in my few conversations about the Tamara in Portugal, why peak oil is not a play, kids in community and why the world would be a better place is we stopped worrying about counting everything.

I leave NYC understand better peoples love of the place.

Headline News

2009-07-29T01:38:00.007-04:00

In one of the many late night metaphysical rants Modok and i shared in Santa Cruz, he once said to me "You need to live your life like your are trying to keep the reader of your biography engaged." It has been a good few weeks for my fictitious biography readers. I can't really do justice to any of the topics i am going to hit on - but things are just going to get worse if i dont do some chronicling - so off we go.

Summer Camp: Network for a New Culture does several camps in the US each year. My take on the these events is they are efforts to look at what kind of culture we want to have in a better world we want to be part of. There is an eclectic mix of topics at summer camp, but the ones around crafting a sex positive culture are the ones which get the most attention. A significant number of people who go to summer camps have a transformative experience, especially people who go as first time participants (interestingly, these revelations usually don't have to do with sex, or at least not primarily so). This years camp did the most radical workshop i have ever been in.

Paul who does work with imprisoned sex offenders in Washington state lead a workshop that didn't just take on the myths about sex offenders. Included in these myths is that sex offenders cant change - when in reality, if fully treated sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rate of any major crime except murder. But the big myth (which i bought into until this camp) was that sex offenders are different from us, that we could perhaps tell them if we were close to them and that they are conveniently "other-able".

A space was created for people to confess anything which they had done to the group and hear the groups response to it. This is a restorative justice exercise, where the group takes responsibility for its collective behavior. Several people admitted some shocking things and the response of the group was pretty impressive. There were a fair number of people who were pretty angry and expressed it in clear terms. Others were appreciative of the daring. Still others were thrown for a loop (including me) and forced to face these things as not distant and other, but as part of my community which is working to heal itself. I cant say much about the stories here, but i can talk about the overwhelming sense that i had in the workshop that if the work is going to change around this type of problem it is going to be thru this kind of daring and this type of community commitment.

And i had my own ideological struggles with summer camp. One of the favorite bromides is "Ask for 100% of what you want, negotiate for a win win, be willing to hear "no" as an answer" When i first heard it i thought it was clever and the more that i watch it, i fear it is too sweeping. I prefer the honest seduction stuff, which deals with disclosers and the complex situations where "yes" actually means "i am doing this for the wrong reasons"

Premin

Also at Summer Camp i met and got romantically involved with Premin (pictured above in some tree i have never seen her in, courtesy of facebook). Working with the organizers of summer camp this year i was able to help provide some scholarships for people who could not otherwise attend camp. Premin (who i had never met) was one of these people.

I was worried as i went to Shana's place (where Premin stayed before camp) that our interaction would be weird, since in the past when i have offered financial help to someone who does not know me they think they are in some unspecified way indebted to me. So i stepped into my first encounter with Premin with some trepidation. But i was alone there.

In my first short conversation with Premin, i was blown away. She was there in her simple magnificence. Money dynamics and hidden obligations to me were undiscussed and clearly unimportant. Her power of presence reflexively drew me into my power. I walked out of our first encounter, with its unremarkable transcript, thinking to myself "i could fall in love with this woman". And in the coming days i promptly did.

As a story teller i am drawn to highlight that she lives in Puna, India tho of European decent. She has a camel named tiger which she has invited me to ride and she teaches several workshops on meditation and empowerment thru self awareness. But this misses the essence of her, which as my karate instructor used to say about trying to use words to transmit meaning "is like trying to hold jello to a tree with a knife."

Villages in the Sky

When i first went to Burning Man in 2001, i realized that from a pagan elemental perspective there were a couple of important festivals missing. We had Burning Man as a fire festival, the Rainbow Gathering was an earth festival, but where was the sister air festival ? Where was "Flowing Woman" beside the sea with healing and spirituality?

So myself and some talented comrades have decided it's time to do something about this. We are going to try to build the air festival. Tho Tobias hates the name, for now at least it is called Villages in the Sky ok, he does not hate it, he just thinks it is too long.

The rough plan is have a festival in the summer of 2010 which celebrates and experiences wind. We are planning on building windmills and tree houses and doing a myriad of other interesting things in hopes of creating an event that is so sexy other people want to organize their own versions in their regions (as has happened with both Burning Man and the Rainbow Gathering). But unlike these venerable events, we do want to leave a trace behind - we want to start building a different and better world that lingers.

At first we thought we would do the event near the intentional communities near Rutledge Missouri. Rutledge was attractive because there are three different Eco-villages all in close proximity (Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill, Red Earth Farms). Tobias, Sara and i trekked out to Missouri to try to entice them into joining our project. There was some interest, and there were lots of concerns. And what we discovered is that these communities did not need any help in promoting themselves, they already had more guess and visitors than they could handle.

Time to rethink our strategy. If Rutledge was not the right place where was? Well, one of the other reasons for selecting Missouri is that they have some of the most relaxed zoning laws in the country. If we were going to be building funky towers for windmills and strange tree house villages, it would be nice to not have to be getting permits and explaining everything to building inspectors. And as soon as we were looking for alternative to Rutledge in Missouri, the sister community of Twin Oaks, East Wind, jumped to mind.

In my mind East Wind has always kind of been the wild, wild west of the communities movement. Located on a thousand acres of beautiful land in the Ozarks, it is younger in population and more far more relaxed than it's older sister Twin Oaks. One indicative story, a few years back my lover Deborah was slightly drunk at East Wind and was in the music room looking up at the ceiling and said "we should build a skylight in this room." The next day she and some friends cut a whole in the ceiling and started to install the imagined skylight. Such a project would take months of discussion and planning at Twin Oaks, and might well not happen because of concerns about the roof leaking or budget priorities.

Several East Winders got excited about the project and decided to jump on in a big way. Lion and Zeke are both helping with a demonstration tower for the event and helping Sheppard the project thru community process. Unlike a skylight in the music room, a several hundred person festival and a large foot print tree house village need to be discussed and agreed to - even in the wild, wild west. We are not completely through our process with East Wind, but there is much more enthusiasm and more supportive festival culture there than we found in Rutledge.

Acorn Tree Houses

We wanted a testbed for the tree house village, so decided to build a smaller version locally to learn about how to build then to so they were 1) safe for kids, 2) low impact on trees and 3) serious fun. Perhaps the martest thing i have said in years was to ex-Oaker Pilgrim who is working on the Acorn aerial village, "Put as many platforms up as you can, dont worry about stairs, railings, safety - someone will follow behind you and get these things." Then, with nothing in place, i went to summer camp. I came back 11 days later and he had lofted 9 platforms, the highest was 35 feet up and over half of them were over a dozen feet high. And my thoughts about the entire project changed - especially my thoughts about what was possible and how the organizers interact with the participants.

"Build then design" became the unofficial motto of the project, perhaps to show up on t-shirts soon. Our job, in my current world view is to create spaces up in trees (these platforms) which others can build on top of and around. The test for carpenters working on the project these days is there ability to work without plans, since there are not any. We will ultimately do drawings of the Acorn Tree houses, but they will be describing what is after it is built, rather than design documents.

Burning Man

So i have been saying for a year that i am not going to Burning Man, it was a lie. It is not that i dont like the event, but there ar only so many festivals a year i can go to and i feel like i understand this one reasonably well having been 3 times including the last two years. And it is also and amazing place potentially for networking and to hustle Villages in the Sky. So we are going to go in a big way, we are pulling together a camp complete with tower, school bus, circus tent and a bunch of enthusiastic funological ambassadors. Watch this space for more details. We are hoping to find an existing theme camp to be near - know any good ones ?

"Oh Communism is okay now..."

2009-06-04T00:04:00.003-04:00

If we had played by the rules, they likely would never have been permitted to come.

But because i was characteristically sloppy, Voice of America came to do a features piece at Twin Oaks. A recruiting manager who was on top of their game would have posted the emails that VOA sent requesting they come and cover the commune weeks before their arrival. And quite likely had i done that the members of the community who had concerns would have rallied enuf upset to chase off the propaganda arm of the US government. But i surprised people with them and they were already on campus before a few people expressed their upset at their presence.

They made no bones about who they were. Calling themselves US propagandists. Offering their own observations of VOA's manipulative behavior, like closing offices in countries they are less interested in. There was a precious moment when they were trying to convince I-P (formerly Piankhy) to let them film him (he was lusciously telegenic with his Asian musical instrument and his rich dark north African skin) by saying that they just reported the facts. I-P was having none of it.

But my favorite moment was when they spoke briefly with Tigger (formerly Tom) who i was trying to set up an interview with. Tigger said "i was initially attracted to Twin Oaks because of the Marxist economics, but i guess you dont want to report on that." To which Susan from VOA quickly replied "Oh communism is okay. Now we are fighting terrorism."

The Call

2009-05-16T01:36:00.003-04:00

When you are a support person for someone who is in trouble, you run a low level anxiety about when they are going to call you.

We have been trying to get this meeting of my international friends and my fellow communards to possibly start a new community near Twin Oaks. It was quite tricky to find a timing which worked for all the players. So we had spent the early part of the evening at Twin Oaks exploring FEC possibilities and had gone to Acorn where i was finally going to get to relax a bit and enjoy the company of these other people who i wanted to get to know Roberto and Marta.

Then the call came. Just as we were about to walk in. But there was no question, no hesitation. You've said you will be there, it's show time.

At one point when i had gotten into trouble for something Kristen and Keenan were talking about my personality and Kristen helpfully said "i just wish Paxus would follow the rules more." and Keenan replied "Pax is not a following the rules kind of guy. He is the guy you call, when you only have one call."

Tonight i got the call and delivered.

Dirty Laundry

2009-04-27T02:54:00.005-04:00

The joke is that because there is no TV on the commune, we create our own soap operas. Even if the proposed origin is incorrect, we certainly have a propensity to rumble emotionally within the bounds of our intense experiment.

Hawina and i have been doing mediation's are a party which went out of control some months back, and the most recent one we did, i was quite worried about. I was afraid because i had worked with both of the people we were mediating with before on romantic relationships stuff and while i care for both of them deeply, i knew that they can both be hard headed and also that the stakes were quite high for this mediation. If we blew it, the cost of failure could potentially be quite high - derailing our hopes of resolving the issues in a one on one basis and instead going to a community level feedback, which would even more certainly go badly.

On top of this, when i had talked to my friend who is aptly named after a volcano goddess a couple of days before the mediation about my concerns, we had ended up spiraling out of control and screaming at each other. Which is pretty rare for me.

And it worked out well, better than well actually it was something of a breakthru. Hawina and i were good, but we never would have made it were it not for the somewhat uncharacteristic vulnerability and compassion of the two people in dialog brought with them.

We went for two hours, voices got raised slightly, but overall everyone kept it under control. What Hawina is good at is getting people to take responsibility for their part of the problem. And in this case that was at the core of the disconnect. And we got there. Having worked on this for some months now, we heard new things in the mediation, self reflections which change the nature of the conversation and make more be possible.

And i realized as i came out of the mediation that this is still some of my favorite work. Helping people communicate, move thru obstacles and mend splits in the community. And especially when we succeed, i am proud of the entire operation. It was a good day for understanding and compassion.

Midnight follies

2009-04-07T02:09:00.004-04:00

Amanda had an amazing b-day party and i stayed for as long as i could. Which meant i was showing up in Jamaica Plain after midnight. Bonnie had agreed to let me stay with her, despite me again having offered to visit this weekend when i was in town last time and then rudely blowing her off.

i had called just before 11, She said she was working a long day the next day, so she would not be very animated company. She gave me the combination lock number and said she would unlock the door to her apartment up this pseudo fire escape. My ride from Amanda's party in Gloucester took longer than expected and when i finally arrived, decoded the door and braved my way up this cluttered, darkened stairs i made it to her kitchen and i decided it was not fair to climb into bed with her, only to wake her up 3 hours later so i could make my connection.

So i went to sleep in the living room on the new couch.

Just as i was about to crash out, Bonnie's flat mates started crashing around in the kitchen. i had never met them before, but i knew they were nice and had a little baby. So i stay in the living room on the couch and no one sees me, no need for awkward introductions. they go to bed, i doze off.

2 AM bonnie calls "Where are you?"
"i am in your living room"
"i was expecting you and could not sleep, come to my room"

so i walk thru the dining room, thru her little dining room, past the bathroom and open the door to Bonnie's room - which is a kids room. i am in the wrong apartment.

just as i realize this my cell buzzes "you're not in my living room" Bonnie informs me of the thought already pounding thru my head as i bound up the fire escape steps.

I thought the couches looked different. ...

nyc glimpses

2009-04-05T13:56:00.003-04:00

i went to visit the curious and eclectic jade netanya beside central park on my way to amandables b-day bash. i found the most charming cafe right beside her house which is called Alice's Tea Cup.

But there was a surreal moment when we drove to jade's synagogue and i ended up across Amsterdam avenue waiting for traffic to pass to catch an open parking space. i crossed and started to back into a space and there was another car which had come later, but was on the right side of the street which had also stopped for the space.

As we backed up into the space he pulled up beside us and expressed his displeasure.

"we were here first" Jade informed him, "we were just on the other side of the street"
"you cant wait on the wrong side and then claim a space" he said with a measured city upset.
there was a moment of silence, i did not pretend to know the nyc street etiquette in this type of situation - jade had already been teasing me about my contry bumpkin ways - cautiously crossing streets, inability to hail cabs effectively, etc. And i was aware that it was quite a good spot for us, close to where we were going and we were basicaly int he spot already at this point.
"you can have it" jade said to the guy, in her generous spirited way
"nahh" he said "you gave it up to easily, you are freaking me out."

this really spun me around. as he drove away i was trying to figure out what was going on in his head. was he looking for a confrontation and we did not provide it? was he afraid that if we left and he parked there we would come back and do something to his car ?

i realized that jade's chiding about my lack of city skills also came with a legitimate critique of lack of understanding of this alien cultue.

hit and run

2009-03-27T02:05:00.003-04:00

i watch you sleep
eyes creeping across your silhouette like
a tarantula escaped from an old bond flick

now reconfigure
align possibilities
w/ framed realities
and something fades in translation

like thursday misses friday
time seems contagious
unable to take a break
running over memories
too tasty to consider
next thing in the queue
dont miss a beat

more realistic, they say
child safe, no one gets hurt
one size fits all

there is a shoe
stuck in the gears
and its callling your name

How do we choose our teachers?

2009-03-23T11:13:00.006-04:00

It starts with respect. You have to believe that your teacher knows something that you desire to learn and has the capacity to share it with you in a way which you can hear. Their experience, be it lived or learned, has to have taken them to a place you want to go to.

Capacity is a function of shared language. This is not so much about English or algebra, but about assumptions. Do we share a belief in science or magic? Is it about our personal experiences, or the counsel of great minds? Does it matter if it is couched in politically correct terminology or off color jokes?

Finally, for me, it is about being seen. I seek a teacher who both appreciates what i have done and recognizes where their lessons may help me to grow.

I spent the weekend with George. He was a successful Wall St wizard who got out when that kind of work stopped being fun. A time which seems to correspond with the arrival to the financial markets of the current ponzi scheme/robbery artists who are currently so fashionable. He is an urban income sharing community pioneer, having helped found Ganas on Staten Island over 30 years ago and helped it grow to 70 people and 8 houses. With its intense and highly public interpersonal growth work it has been quite a wild ride. He is practices polyamory (which he prefers to call "free love" because he wants it freely chosen). A historian and a polyglot, with roots in Spain and Germany, he speaks eloquently of Catholic priests who espouse zen and the scientific basis of magical orgasm. He decoded his own chronic stress (where the specialists could only treat the symptoms) with a complex mix of practiced biofeedback techniques and dead simple meditation. He is unequal parts pragmatist, philosopher and clown.

He is writing a book (that i have my doubts about its completion) about being the Canary in the Coal mine. About what he learned in starting community and how the scientists/materialists can find their hearts and integrate. And after this weekend lively meandering conversations, punctuated by his animated laughter, it is already clear he has much to teach me.

He is arrogant, heretical and iconoclastic. He is a giant among men and i am proud to call him my new friend.

Eulogy

2009-02-20T23:23:00.003-05:00

i gave this talk at the Harvard Memorial Church today at my fathers funeral. It was well received.

I disagree with people for a living. My father was one of the most agreeable people you ever met. And yet it was from him that I learned, if you wanted to be in the conversation, you need to listen deeply and to be able to reflect back what someone else truly believes.

I break the law as part of my work. My father was the most law-abiding man I ever met. And it was from him I learned that you need to have an unwavering moral compass, so that whoever meets you knows what you believe in.

My father built highly functional schools and elegant houses. I stop the construction of inherently dangerous and unnecessary nuclear reactors. It is from him I learned that my role is to serve in the building of a better world.

My father’s father was a large man named “Tiny”. He died when my father was a boy and I believe this helped make my father a careful and cautious man. I was fortunate to have a dedicated and supportive father for 5 decades and I am convinced this security helped make me comfortable taking chances.

When I get up in the morning and look in the mirror before days which tend to be busy and long, as my fathers were, I sometimes see the mirror image of the man, who despite being different, was one of my most important teachers.

a watch and a ring

2009-02-17T09:11:00.005-05:00

i visited my family of origin to go to the burial of my father. While i was there, my mother was excited about me taking a number of things which belonged to my father which were useful to me. His shoes fit, i took a cashmere sweater and a couple of nice jackets.

i also took a watch of his and started to wear it. One of the differences between me and most of the folx in my college graduating class is that for the last 30 years or so, i have not worn a watch. i mostly consider it an oppressive symbol and device. for the past half dozen years or so, i have used my cell phone to cheat and figure out what time it was when i needed to know. Now i have given myself permission to do something different. i wear it in part to think of him and in part to be a bit more organized, something i am thinking a lot about as i head towards a likely jail sentence of 15 days which will be wasted time if i am not more organized than i generally am.

8 years ago my dear friend and spiritual brother Modok convinced me to get a ring. i dont wear jewelry and it was something of a big deal for me, but he sold me on the idea that i was wearing it for Willow, who we were not even sure would exist at that time. When i tried to counter that we had not agreed to have a child yet, Modok (always intellectually quick on his feet) said "if you decide not to have the kid, you can make a small wooden boat, put the ring on it and send it down the river - thus ritualistically letting go of the idea of having a child." When i remained skeptical, he bought it for me and gave it to me.

It is one of these very common "Oh manny padmay ohm" rings, which i think has Sandskit text on it. I have gotten similar ones for Sky and Hawina and Joy and Anissa. But i have kept this one for these years, thinking that i will give it to Willow when he leaves home (also Modok's clever idea). yesterday i lost the ring.

i lost it in the best possible way. Willow and i were coming back from town at Twin Oaks and i wanted to carry him to MorningStar where he was going to hang out with Tom and Jonah until his next primary. Carrying him requires locking my hands together under him and supporting his weight, it also means loosing my feeling slightly in my fingers. When i checked for my ring, which i absently do with some regularity, ti was gone. Willow and i walked back along the path to try and find it, searching caefully. But to no avail. It might turn up, lost things often do at my commune and people dont steal stuff like this.

And it seems strangely symbolic that this ring of my son should disappear from my left hand when the watch of my fathers now dons that hand.

Bye dad

2009-02-04T21:20:00.010-05:00

The way my dad used to tell the story was he was being interviewed for the job to design the Cornell Campus Book Store and the interviewer asked, "How do you plan to make the architecture of this building fit in with the architecture of the various different styles of the buildings around it?"

The answer which he had not thought of until that moment was
"Put it underground"

He says the answer got him the job, the building is underground and as the picture above shows, it almost vanishes.

But my dad was not an impulsive guy, generally. His dad (the dean of Cornell's college of Agriculture) died when my dad was a young adolescent and this made his life very difficult. And so my father was extremely risk averse. Interestingly, the security and stability that this created in his family life generated two highly risk seeking sons. My brother the rock star and myself.

And i oversimplify, for were he completely risk averse, he would have never started his own company.

i learned a lot of things from my father. Somethings, like my relationship to risk or my views on polyamory or anarchism came from opposing what he believed. We had our disagreements, but he was graceful and for the most part accepting of our differences. This is an area where i am still trying to learn from his model.

He was a highly principled man. He was offered a bribe by a contractor that would have been nearly impossible to trace at a time when he and his company really needed the money. Here he never hesitated. He showed the guy the door and never worked with him again.

He would not go out to lunch with his secretary alone. "Not because anything might happen." he explained to me, "but because someone might think something was happening." This type of caution and concern for the opinions of others, did not turn out to be genetically transmittable.

He did teach me to be good to my word, to look for elegant solutions and to identify myself with my work.

And in this last thing we lost each other a bit, work as identity. We were not especially close and i did some things i regret in years past which increased our distance.

In the mid 80s, at the height of my personal radicalization, the market for schools (which is what his firm was famous for) collapsed. Under his guidance his office started seeking other kinds of design work. My dad took pride in showing me around his office and point out all the different project they were involved in.

We made it to one set of drawings and i read the client name "Electronic Warfare Incorporated". When i asked him about it, he said they were in a competition to design their headquarters building.

I said " you should not do this job. These people are simulating the end of the world. And through their work we are in greater risk of it coming to pass."

My father was surprised by my comment and replied "if we don't do this work, someone else will."

"If they asked you to build concentration camps, would you do it because someone else would if you did not?" i challenged. My father was deeply offended and our relationship frayed.

A dozen years later, after i had moved back from eastern Europe and started living on the commune, i went to work with my father for a summer in his offices in Boston, with the hope of bridge building to him. We commuted to work together every day and we chatted and i tried several times to get inside the man who was responsible for my birth. But i failed, not completely, but mostly. He was not emotionally accessible to me, perhaps i had burned the bridges, or perhaps he did not really know how to meet me in this place.

He did love what he did and if awards and public praise are any measure, he had a gift for it. He, unlike me, was modest. He was a good liberal and supported fairness in the system. And he believed in the system.

When i bough Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the United States, from a book store in Harvard Square, near his old offices he asked me what it was. "It is a radical history book", i replied. And he took offense. "There is no radical history, there is just history." We disagreed and one of the most difficult lessons he taught me, was that for radicals it is exactly people like my parents who we need to get our messages to. And i was exactly the wrong person to try to get this message to him.

I was supposed to be something different than i became. My class background, my education was supposed to take me other places. My grandmother thought i would be a good governor, most of my college friends thought i would end up a lawyer, for a while it looked like i might be a software engineer. But despite the peculiar career path i embraced, i always felt supported and loved by both of my parents, even if they wished i would just grow up and be the CEO of something.

There was a nice moment we shared long after my father was forced to stop working because of the Parkinson's, which took his life last night. A speaking engagement on nukes was organized for me in my folks house and a bunch of neighbors came, one of whom was a Noble prize winner in chemstry. At the end of the talk he went to my father and said "I did not really expect to learn anything and i did not expect to be engaged and i was wrong on both counts." My father beamed with pride.

"I know i am a good architect" he told me in a rare immodest moment "it is someone else's job to decide if i am a great architect." i dont know enuf about architecture to make that call. But i do know this, your were a great dad.

tears for Aris

2009-01-23T09:15:00.004-05:00

Part of my job, if finding gifted young people and offering them tools. Aris was an easy find at even at Casa Robino. Amongst all the charming and attractive people who storm thru this adventure in radical hospitality, she stood out. We spoke on the back porch for some hours, about skillsurfers about what she wanted to do with this group and these people. This eloquent, multilingual 19 year old spoke of land in Slovenia that she controlled that she wanted to do collective things with. We spoke of hitching and of how she transended her fear.

Aris has passed. A boat capsized and took her from us. My eyes bleed for this loss.

"Constantainiously"

2009-01-08T19:36:00.003-05:00

Wikipedia has it that when Wam Kat was 18 the doctors told he he had a year left to live. Faced with this horrifying fact he told an affirming solution - he decided to live an entire life in a single year. Then he did not die, nor did he slow down. Now nearly 4 decades later his life could fill several biographies.

Founding of the European Youth Action network EYFA and summer activist gathering Ecotopia. He was also the mastermind behind the differential currency rate conversion based on countries earning power rather than the legal conversion rates - calle dthe Eco-rates. During the Yugoslavian conflict he set up the largest non-state refugee camps in Croatia as well as the Pakrac housing reconstruction project. He's set up email networks, written books on the history and reciepts of the Dutch mobile anarchist kitchen Rampenplan. And won a city counsel seat in Belzig Germany.

Now he wants to do the 20th Ecotopia in Belzig in 2010. since the network he founded seems to have lost interest in the project, fearing it is not action oiented enough and too "life style" in approach.

Wam is a digital pioneer, but did his heavy lifting long before Facebook showed up. So is exploring this as a new organizing/discussion tool.

Wam tells stories and makes up words. "Constantainiously" is one of my favorites. It does not exactly mean constantly + instantaniously, but if you hold this meaning in mind, you will get something of the flavor of what he is trying to say.

Travel Troubles

2009-01-04T02:33:00.002-05:00

When i hear something like "Romania is terrible" in my mind it translates into "we lost our bags and missed our train." As it has oft been ironically noted "all people who generalize are fools." [My experience of Romania, in years long past was it was wonderful.]

This trip has not been without it's troubles - between Hamm and Minden in Germany my backpack disappeared. i think it was stolen, since when the train stopped, i searched every wagon for bag to no avail and due to a communication failure with the conductor ended up getting separated from Angie, Hawina and Willow, who ended up going on to Belzig without me. [i arrived within minutes of them by taking the fast, but expensive ICE - intercity express].

A couple of new years back i resolved to stop packing, i made a number of trips without a bag, borrowing clothes and other key items from comrades on route, which worked okay - but slowly i gravitated back to bringing my own stuff. This bag which was lost, despite being mostly my stuff, was harder for the rest of my party, because it had some of Willows toys and our movies and Angie's clothes and trinkets.

More distressing was Willow tripping yesterday and ending up between the train and the platform in Berlin Haupt Bahnhof. i missed most of the action because i was wrestling with a Hawina's big rolly bag. But when i looked up i saw Hawina blocking exiting travelers while rescuing Willow's sneakers from beside the third rail. The quick German rail staff miss identified Willow as a girl and his foot as broken. Then again quickly another German rail person showed up with the forms to fill out to for us to receive paid for medical coverage. But after quick consultation with Willow, such assistance was not necessary and in an uncharacteristically rough manner i made the rail staff back off. I knew that Willow would be very unhappy if on top of his fall we missed our time compressed connection to Prague and some mama bear instinct came out in me that was going to get my kid to the train, regardless of the misinformed bureaucrats in the way.

Family Snapshot

2009-01-03T17:31:00.005-05:00

my mentor told me to live like you are trying to keep the rader of your autobiography engdged.

i am in prague w/ my first wife adela my ex-daughter barborka and my second wife hawina and my lover angie and my son willow and we had dinner with janH who is bara's dad and adela's ex. part of the evening i spent skype chating with alda (who works for greenpeace in Latvia), who is janH's current partner in the presense of curious mix.

Teaching willow how to operate a lighter and to light candles at varying different flame heights. Listening to bara's music - some Czech, some English (Annie MacDonald and Snoop Dog), adela translates the piece she wrote for the Czech Maxim editors slamming her ex-boyfriends critique of womens aging bodies - by being even more critical of men becoming decrepit, angie shooting pictures of willow dancing on my sholders to bara's music, hawina chatting with corb and then coming up to watch the snippet of Happy Feet which is bara's favorite (in Czech, English and Spanish alternatingly) and brushing willows hair. It is simultaniously wonderfully cross cultural, richly intergenerational and fully alive.

There are perhaps people luckier than me. But i have never heard of them.

Casa Chats

2008-12-26T19:21:00.005-05:00

I love this poster from the second world war, i want to put it up next to anti-freeze commercial which used to say "never pick up a stranger".

It is high tea at the Casa tonight, the conversation is about memetics and local complimentry currencies, wikis on sharing, distributed systems (as contrasted to decentralized), gift economies, rooftop remedies. Dante, Marc, Amylin, Slawek, Angie, Robin, Kadri - amazing talk, wonderful people.

I also found out a disturbing thing about Blogspot/blogger. If you save an unpublished blog entry, people using google reader can read parts of it sometimes, even tho you have not released it to the public. It is easy to imagine someone using an unpublished blog post as a place to vent only to find that they are telling people using google reader things they had no intention of telling them. Bad bug google kids.

Winning Ugly

2008-12-23T12:59:00.006-05:00

Lucifer tells me that the financial crisis in Russia is getting so bad, that nuclear insiders are now thinking that none of the 10 proposed domestic reactor projects are likely to be built. This is not info from people who want stop them, this is from people who are paid by the nuclear establishment and wants to see them.

Radio Bulgaria is announcing the oft stopped Belene nuclear power plant will go into contstruction in the second half of 2009. They say these 2 reactors will cost $4 billion total turn key and will be finished by 2013 and 2014 and that the Russian banks are going to finance it. Lies, all lies. They cant do it that fast (where is the pressure vessel coming from ?), they cant do it that cheap (US reactor cost estimates are running nearly twice this - the new contract for Vogtle signed in April of this year is for $14 billion, plus $3 billion in transmission upgrades) and they can't get the money from the Russians.

The big question is will Mr Obama offer huge uneconomic bailouts for utilities wishing to build reactors. When Google, Al Gore, Oil Magnet T. Boone Pickens and the Rocky Mountain Institute all have plans for climate change friendly restructuring of the US electricity sector, which avoid new nuclear.

omelet competition

2008-12-14T19:00:00.004-05:00

The lush hills above Barcelona
are dry for months at a time.
Everything which thrives scrounges water.
Including these gardens.
Here sinks and showers catch gray water
which is separated in barrels
and irrigates these lands.

It grows not just the communities food
but that of the neighbors who share this liberated plot
rescued from half a centuries disuse.

[The city fenced up this former leper hospital
and forgot about it
while space crunched neighbors
watched weeds spread
knowing more was possible]

for 7 years now these gardens have flourished
defying the local authorities
yet with the budding support of the local people
who not only grow their food here
but come to meetings and pot lucks and parties

it has been a long road
getting these local gardeners
to trust these industrious squatters
stereotypes die slowly
but persistence pays

today we saw
the omelet competition
that was every local activists
dream come true

wizened grandmas beside tattooed anarchists
working class families beside young community dwellers
laughing and sharing stories
comparing and cheering lovingly made omelets
being the neighborhood - the barrio
in its thriving and lively form

this is the best of what we might be

this is Can Masdeu

unsurprising surprises

2008-12-06T22:23:00.004-05:00

"You will be surprised to learn ..." Willow says with complete seriousness. And i am, and i am surprised when he speaks like this. And i should not be, one of the few rules around Willow is we don't talk down to him and we don't lie to him. He asks an embarrassing question we give a straight answer, even if it does not frame us in an ideal way.

He speaks like and adult, because all his short life we have been speaking to him like he was one. Or more precisely, like we wanted his comprehension to be very high, so we did no assume he did not know complex words and he is completely comfortable (it seems to me) asking what a word he has not learned means.

He is doing so well on this trip. Rarely complaining, doing all kinds of things which are stretch for him - like all this traveling and being without his dear friends. And he is rolling with it. He makes it all an adventure, even when it is not what he wants. i need to get him to teach me this.

Crisis as Opportunity

2008-12-06T20:41:00.004-05:00

The NY Times reports that last months record jobless figures are far worse than the official numbers. This because lots of people have simply given up looking and they are not recorded. i wonder about these people. i wonder what percentage of them - perhaps only a few percent would consider a radical possibility.

Let say we organized citizen based volunteer public works construction projects. Where groups of people who are unemployed and want to work take risks on projects which are decided consensually by the group and the influenced community and then fix, repair, renovate, upgrade what ever a space.

People would be housed and feed by folx who were benefiting from the project, or in other dorm or donated circumstances. There would be no guarenteed wage and there would be efforts made to raise funds for the workers from various sources, including the positively influenced local area and governments and philanthropic organizations.

So lets take some steriods and make this an anarchist wet dream. Let's say we are looking at an economic down turn, combined with peak oil and climate change concerns that starts to shift our use of heavy equipment and high tech manufacturing. Let's take the missing grid problem in the mid west and say you want to solve it a different way. Instead of takign a centralized power, with emminant domain and realtively low labor and high hardware solutions. You take decentralized power, community level negotiations about where these tricky lines should go and how they should be laid (underground in some cases) and then use labor intensive installation solutions to save on hardware. Instead of huge high tech/hig energy pillars, you do more erector set construction, lighter, more labor intensive and likely larger foot print.

You could even not have the entire route planned form the beginning and figure it out from both ends as you worked to connect the grid.

It's late. I'll abandon this wildness and see if i think there is anything worth pursing tomorrow - oh one last thing, miners - unemployed coal miners used to build this new infrastructure - just 1% of them.

Beginning of the end?

2008-12-06T05:31:00.005-05:00

We won yesterday in South Africa. The "we" in this case is the anti-nuclear movement (those close to me are often asking "Which 'we' are you talking about Paxus?"). The Financial Times reports:

In a big setback for the world’s renascent nuclear industry, South Africa’s publicly owned utility, Eskom, on Friday cancelled plans to build a new multi-billion dollar plant.

The FT goes on to point out that this means there are no active tenders for new reactors in any of the worlds promising markets and that SA was planning on eight more reactors after these two which were canceled. What they don't point out is that this is especially vexing for the nuclear industry because, unlike almost all of the rest of the world the South Africa economy is still growing and forecasted to grow and that South Africa was leading the charge for pebble bed reactors design which were supposed to be "smaller, cheaper and safer".

The state utility is instead investing in conventional sources to meet the forecasted growing energy demand, while still holding open the option of new reactors in the future. So we have won the battle, but the war is not over.

Certainly, the credit crunch played into this decision, but i also credit Greenpeace which just two weeks ago sent out it's report on the risk of nuclear investments to every member of the SA parliament. There is so much wrong with nuclear, simply reporting the truth is often enuf to kill these projects, even with the highest paid sales force in the world lying and bribing (as they did in Argentina, South Korea and the Philippines) their way to success.

The other civilized

2008-12-03T20:14:00.006-05:00

As we walk down the street holding hands, and i can feel the hint of rotten food on her fingers.

"Your mother would be horrified if she knew you were dumpster diving." As would mine.

Barcelona is not used to people looking for treasure in trash. Especially people who dont look like they are starving or destitute. But their we are, over educated, nicely dressed, presumably affluent white people digging thru other peoples garbage.

Barcelona is the other kind of civilized, the southern european version to bookend what Am*dam does.

It starts with an assault on time. Siesta is not just an abstract worker entitlement, it is a defining aspect of life here. Walk down the most fashionable or most crowded streets of this town at 1 PM and almost everything is closed. In December this is not because the heat of the day is unbearable - it is pleasant, in fact. It is because living is more important than working, a notion so radical it can't be embraced by most of the industrial world.

The other thing about siesta, is that it changes peoples expectations around time in general. 5 PM is not a significant closing time here. Lots of stuff, including banks and city services stay open later than that.

Caroline took Ethan and i to the big open air market this morning, we bought some forks and a blanket for the charming flat she has invited us into. It was crowded, cluttered and relaxed. There did not appear to be haggling going on, prices mostly seemed quite low, there were vendors hawking all types of things, but it was a different pace than the street markets of Am*dam. Caroline and i were constantly walking around people on the street.

The legal system punishes poverty crimes (black riding, squatting, vagrancy) less than most western countries and instead of the city drifting into lawlessness - it operates as a second level of social welfare net which reduces the number of beggars on the street and redistributes wealth.

It is not paradise, but they have chosen a different set of problems.

Dumpsters and Willow

2008-11-28T06:37:00.003-05:00

When i was almost 7 my father first took me fishing. We went out on the nearby pond and caught catfish. I thought they were disgusting, slimy and alien. My father tried to explain that this is where we got food from. I knew better, we get food from the store.

I was half expecting to get the same response from Willow, now almost 7, when i took him dumpster diving for the first time yesterday. Grabbing stuff out of dumpsters is dirty work - smashed fruits and vegetables, trash mixed with treasure. All a bit gross and hardly enticing.

And as is often the case, my son surprised me. Happy to hold bags while we rescued stuff from the Ten Katestraat dumpsters. More than willing to run under vendor tables to grab a pepper or orange, inspect it and then leave it behind if it was too damaged or take pride in the find if it was salvagable. It was another kind of game for him. We skipped back to Casa together, laden with produce.

That's how i spent my thanksgiving, the most hopeful one i have had in years.

It's not too late

2008-11-28T03:22:00.009-05:00

Dave Pollard writes a thoughtful blog. One of his most recent entries was rightly criticizing the government about it's inaction around climate change. And there is much to be critical of, including Obama's most recent speech on the topic, which is way too little given what the official science is telling us these days.

But this leads Dave to toy with the potentially self crippling conclusion, that we are "too late" and the game is over. Below is an extended version of the comment i wrote on his blog.

It is not too late. We are just too lazy.

I live in an eco-village in the US. We consumes 30% of the gasoline, per person of our mainstream counterparts. We use 10% of the home heating fuel and cooking gas and produces 10% of the trash of average US americans. And the lifestyle is in most ways indistinguishable from the American middle class, in terms of access to resources. And the really funny/tragic thing, is we are not even trying at it very hard. We dont prioritize sustainability over everything in our budgeting process, we often take cheap fixes instead of green ones.

What we do do well is sharing. We share 17 cars for 100 people, something virtually unheard of in the US, centralized shopping is a service which only the very rich have available to them and i enjoy everyday when i am at home. Growing most of our own food takes about 3% of our total labor (a bit higher than the national average) but most folx in the mainstream wont spend that amount of time on it.

Certainly Bush, Clinton and Gore can take heat for not doing anything at a national level to solve the climate crisis. But Twin Oaks came into being without government assistance and there is nothing which stops the model from replicating itself all over the country (there are about 8 communities in this model now, since our founding over 40 years ago).

Nothing except that old critique from kindergarten "Does not play well with others". The reason we cant share is that we cant talk to our neighbors. The reason we cant share is that we actually believe we need for all our stuff to sit idle almost all the time, because we have a tremendous fear that if we were to lend it out, even to close friends it might get broken or lost. We have (indirectly granted) decided that it is more important for our stuff not to be disturbed than for our planet to be habitable for our kids.

Almost everyday for the last week most of my food has been coming from the dumpsters at the market near Casa Robino. We go and rescue stuff and increasingly talk with vendors who give us the stuff they cant sell before it goes in the trash. We are building relationships and saving that energy (in the form of food). And part of what is surprising to me, is that there is no one else doing this. No poor people, no environmentalists, no life style anarchists.

It is not that there are no solutions our there, we are just pretending that the government is where they will all come from, so we dont have to organize them ourselves.

15 minutes of fame

2008-11-27T02:31:00.006-05:00

Andy Warhol advises that we have our 15 minutes of superstardom. Perhaps i have spent mine getting into both the NY Times and Wash Post today. Or perhaps this old dog has some other tricks pending. Stay tuned.

Casa Classic

2008-11-26T09:40:00.004-05:00

There are about 10 people hosting at Casa Robino now so we have this slightly complicated situation involving the mailbox and two different sets of keys. i had no keys when i came back for wrestling with Willow and waited for 20 minutes before Marc and Topher and Nitai showed up. They had one set of keys, but had lost the other.

So we could get into the building, but not into the Casa - physically. Virtually however, Marc was able to 1) take our pictures 2) use he Casa Wifi and 3) Post the picutre and the pathetic caption that we were locked out on the cover of the Casa Robino website.

moments later we were rescued.

Short list plus 1

2008-11-25T19:21:00.005-05:00

i dont actually know how to be a revolutionary. what i know as a radical and organizer is you try things, you get things done, hopefully you make right choices.

i've been looking at my disorganization. Angies has worked with me on this with a persistance and cleverness sufficient to inspire a sonnet. I have "ttd - things to do" list scattered around my virtual world (google docs, igoogle homepage, my Twin oaks "indiv" folder, etc). Most get looked at for a while and then ignored until they are uselessly out of date.

So i thought i would try someting new. Just the three things which i am procrastinating on and are timely. Today that was writing X min Y foundation, cleaning up the EcoDefense application request to Wallace Global Fund and getting the address to a STI testing clinic.

So i liked this idea of choosing the a prioritized few items. But when Angie and i talked about this before, it came up that this would not feed the need to dream part of my identity (which seems to have a large presence here in Am*dam). So short list plus 1 - work on one big idea.

So Robin has been half jokingly pushing Sharism as a new religion. Religions scare me. And religions are extremely powerful memetic engines. So as i was wandering slightly lost in the city today, i saw a church. So i decided to check it out - quite uncharacteristically.

[There is a 70s French language film called Cousin, cousine and the only scene i remember is a guy waiting outside a church for a funeral to end. He did not like what happened in churches, so he did not go inside. Over the last few years i have been embracing this philosophy. I did not go into the church for Kat's ceremony (and she would have supported this i know) same for Thea and Roberts wedding. I vote absentee to avoid going in to the church. A little idiosyncrasy.]

So i get to the large Amsterdam WesternMarket church. It is locked up. i ring the buzzer for secretary. She tells me that the church is closed for the winter, only visible on sunday. But there is more in her explaination, something in her voice. She is telling me, it would not be right to heat this big church during the winter, it would be wasteful. God is down with climate change.

i am glad i went to church today.

Amylin

2008-11-23T07:14:00.007-05:00

Amylin is the digital nomad i was dreaming about before i met her. Lively, talented, daring - she embodies a lifestyle that many find fascinating and scary.

One of her fans sent her a digital camera. She hitched across China so she could make a cheap flight to London from Hong Kong. She traveled by herself in Morocco.

Finding blogs too narcissistic, her blog only answers question. People tell her what she is doing is not possible, she ignores them and does it anyway.

An idea a day

2008-11-19T18:13:00.007-05:00

I used to work for the Standard Oil company that was pumping the North Slope of Alaska that was 50% controlled by British Petroleum. And at one point we had some of the BP senior managers breeze thru and i spent a lunch talking to a guy who was paid a lot o money to work in strategic planning. "Our job is to come up with one good idea a day|. At first i was really enchanted by this idea.

When i lived in Brno i actually tried to do it for a time. I got a small journal and really worked at coming up with something new and useful each day. But it was quickly exhausting. Not so much because i could not come up with the ideas, but because the ideas once hatched would call for attention and ultimately there was too much to do.

I have this feeling here in Am*dam. Like i am overwhelmed by the possibilities. And i have happily given up trying to focus. And am just bathing in the impossible number of options. My current favs are:

Flogging as described in Digital Nomads
Rooftop solutions: urban windmills and micro farming
Incentive Interventionism - to deal with the US financial crisis
Sharing is Daring
Sharism - as a new religion

Fabian

2008-11-18T18:11:00.003-05:00

For the two years before i left Europe i gave semen to Micha and Wieneke to help them have a baby. Now that baby is 10 and plays a pretty mean game of chess.

Wieneke asked both of us if we had any feeling about our biological connection when we were near each other. We both said no.

And in retrospect, i am very happy to have crossed 3 countries every month for nearly two years. Wieneke and Micha and Fabian are fabulous together. And i am lucky to be the outlaw uncle.

The Next Big Thing

2008-11-13T23:35:00.008-05:00

i am watching Rosie on googles new vchat facility. and i see how the technology will affect relationships. seeing the notes from our love letter writing workshop we did together on her wall, watching her laugh and engaging in higher bandwidth will make it impossible for me to hold her emotionally away as i have been doing since ran away from her.

i watch vchats viral influence as little green and orange gchat dots change into little green and orange vchat cameras. And i theorize how this will take on the phone companies, pull traffic towards google, cripple skype and feed into the digital nomad thing i have been thinking about recently.

Update: So i turns out i am likely wrong about this. I was gchating with Dave Pollard, Tree's new romantic interest. And he said that they have video chatting capacity at hsi office, but they dont use it for conferences, instead putting up still pictures and using the bandwidth for data and other presentations.

And i guess my enthusiasm comes in large part from being able to see these beuatiful and animated women i chat with, Abigail, Angie, Patty, Rosie. If i were look at some grumpy old guy in a business suit, i would probably focus on the powerpoint presentation as well.

Gorleben Blues and Greens

2008-11-09T22:01:00.009-05:00

There are 15000 protesters at Gorleben tonight and 17000 cops. It is one of the largest and longest running anti-nuclear protest in years. Three activists at the French border connected themselves with concrete under the tracks and managed to block the radwaste transport for over 12 hours. Even at cheap rates that is a $4 million action in police overtime.

The German salt domes designated as perminent waste storage are flooded and contaminating the ground water. Just like the rad-waste storage at Hanford, Washington was supposed to prevent the contamination from reaching the Columbia River for a thousand years - it got there in three.

My big hope is that Obama is smart enough to see thru empty promises of the nuclear industry and both kill the funding for new reactors and not let nukes into the acceptable mechanisms for climate protection at the Copenhagen convention at the end of 2009, which follows up the Kyoto protocol.

That is my audacious hope.

For the English language ticker on the myriad Gorleben actions click here
For a very nice photo gallary of picutres from the action click here

[my blog spell checker seems stuck on German, so give me a while to get this cleaned up]

Honorarium of Socks

2008-11-07T20:05:00.003-05:00

The following is a speach i gave tonight at the international panel discussion at the Gorleben anti-nuclear waste transport action. It was given with alternating translation into German.

If anyone tells they know how to stop the Castor transports they are lieing. I have worked on anti-nuclear campaigns in North America, Eastern and Western Europe for over 20 years and every time we win we are surprised. We never would have guessed that the tactics and strategies we used would succeed, but somehow sometimes they do.

And there are things we do know, things my German friends and Russian comrades can teach my fellow Americans. And to name the most important, it is persistence.

I was here in Gorleben on this blockade in 1997 with over 10,000 protesters. The police were very hard on us, using water cannons, pain compliance and tear gas. Now more than 10 years later, thousands of people will again return to continue this fight. These actions have shaped the debate on nuclear power in Germany. And they remind this country and the world that there is no solution to the problem of nuclear waste.

I have three pieces of advice for you. The first is find someone who inspires you and ask them why they do this work. There are many powerful and compelling reasons to come here and participate. For me it is the unfairness of nuclear power - that this generation enjoys the benefits of this dirty electricity and thousands of future generations have to suffer for it.

My second advice is build strong positive memories of this action. If you like to play cat and mouse games with the police, be sure to do it here. If you are a social person than stay up late and party with these amazing people. If you love nature take time to enjoy the beautiful local scenery. what is important is that you build memories so strong that when your friend asks you next year "Are you going back to Gorleben?" you will find yourself saying "yes".

And my third piece of advice is be daring. This could be as radical as chaining yourself to the tracks or as simple as helping make a group meal if you never cook. You can help out at the first aid tent when the police casualties come rolling in, if this is not the kind of thing you would normally do. Streach yourself here. Be creative. For there is a chance that we will look back on your act of daring wth surprise, fr it was one of the actions which ended this nuclear madness.

--------------------

At the end of our presentation, our host Kerstin gave all the speakers hand knit socks, very practical gift for tomorrow nights long wait for the Castor transport.

i returned home to Kerstins place with Lucifer and the Russian anti-nuclear mafia. Galina and Rashid were listening to Iraqi language recordings which were designed for the US military fighting there. They consisted of such gems as "We are liberators, we are not occupiers" and "Give up, resistance is futile" With a million children dead between US sanctions and war on that country, i only hope i am never lucky enough to be liberated by the US.

Digital Nomads: A How To Guide

2008-11-04T15:40:00.013-05:00

There is a new lifestyle, which is right around the corner, facilitated by the collapsed borders within Europe and the advent of hand held internet technology and the rapid development of three separate types of websites typified by trashwiki.org, hitchwiki.org and bewelcome.org. Here is how it works.

You dont have any money and you are in Zagreb. You go to hitchwiki and it tells you the best place to get out of the city. But this is not all, short funds, but long time and internet access at the library, you read all about the routes to Am*dam, the hassles of the Ruhrgebiet (the megacity around Bonn/Cologne) and how to best avoid the Swiss police.

You have always believed in starting early, to show the first drivers you are serious about getting where you are going. Quickly, you are on the road. Your first driver is carpenter from Munich, who used to hitch when he was younger. You maintain the casual conversation and when he gets on his cell phone call from his girlfriend, you retreat to your own internet enabled cell phone. You look for the best exits near his planned end stop in Freiburg Germany. You remember when hitching was much harder, more guesses more walking. It is still quite daring, but you have the kind of confidence that Ford Prefect had reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

There is a small village of wagons about 3 miles from the most southern exit. They offer themselves as an overnight place for hitchers and there are several good reports from people who have passed thru. You walk from the exit to Star Village and are just in time to go dumpster diving for dinner.

Dumpster diving in Europe is often different than in the US. While they are not all open, the dumpsters which are dont suffer from the various discouragements used in the US, broken glass or motor oil sprayed on the food to keep pesky dumpster divers out. You borrow a bike and ride with Ellen of Star Village down to the local market which is just closing. She already has a relationship with several of the vendors and they have put food aside for her/ Food which was destined for the trash. Ellen has entered a lot about the Freiburg farmers market on trashwiki.
There personalities, their willingness to deal with strangers, the layout of the market and location of the best dumpsters and the best times to be there.

Back at Star Village various contributions make up the eclectic dinner. Carefully prepared food, some from the garden, some rescued the farmers market, a few things purchased. There is a young woman, Sabrina, who is also interested in hitching to the Netherlands. While she is not willing to get up at the crack of dawn, you're convinced you will do better hitching with her. And it is safer as well.

You get up early anyway the next morning. Help with some gardening, fix a couple of bike flat tires as your contribution to Star Villages all volunteer economy. You write your own entry in Hitchwiki encouraging those who come after you to Star Village to bring chocolate for Ellen (for an example of an excellent annotated hitchwiki map of good spots). And about your experience in the farmers market in trashwiki.

Sabrina gets up at almost 11 AM and you take the bus to the hitchwiki recommended hitching spot. The weather is threatening, but her smile brightens the day and my mood. A driver stops and after his admonishments of how women should not hitchhike, we settle into the drive to boarder town of Aachen. Sabrina gets a ride into the train station where she will pay for the last part of her travel. But i dont have the option, my wallet remains empty. The Bewelcome.org hospitality website shows several entries for Aachen, but there are no phone numbers and the local ambassador does not seem to be answering their phone. It's getting dark.

Hitching is largely useless at night. You could ask people at gas stations, a common practice in Germany, but you are shy, preferring exit ramps and willing drivers. The night is not threatening rain and the cars are not stopping, so you roll up in your sleeping bag under a big tree (tents are too bulky). Exhausted from walking between gas stations and exit ramps, from maintaining conversations in your limited English, the sadness about losing Sabrina's fair company too soon - the high speed traffic noise nearby does not slow your sleep.

The Dutch are not as friendly with hikers as the Germans. One driver explained that it is because all the student aged persons have rail passes and that there is limited number of hitchhikers and they are less trusted for being indigent.

Finally you arrive at your host home, a former squat called Zhaba, long since legalized on quite favorable terms. Natural candidates for radical hosting adventures. . The accommodations are not palacial, but they are friendly and reasonably clean. Happily they are experienced with guests and give you a set of keys as soon as you show up. You were guided there by Casa Radio which you found in BeWelcome.Org. Casa Radio is a combination placement service and city ore, which is directing you in. Casa Radio is actually a collection of hosting locations that you were in communication with before you left Croatia. They promised you a place tho they were not sure where it would be in Am*dam, as your plans solidified you texted Casa Radio and they confirmed your final location. Unable to afford the beautiful mass transit, you walk the last mile and half from the A2 exit to Zhaba. You're tired, but the places is comfortable, despite your space being quite small.

One of the most important services BeWelcome.org offered was low skill temp work for foreigners. They keep a listing of urban gardening, light construction and demolition work, dog walking, cleaning and cooking jobs. The website uses a reputation system, which almost all users put quite some energy into maintaining good online reputations. It was through offering better services like Casa Radios landing assistance and work opportunities for folx new in town that lead to it stealing most of the members to CouchSurfing.Com

In the morning there is muesli and left over fruit salad from the night before. A group of Zhaba kids will fix a leak in the roof after breakfast. You get to talking to Tatiana, who is writing a flog. Flogs were originally stories written by traveling bloggers would write about other peoples stories, written with the intention of selling ads (with Google Ad sense or similar services) and bringing in lots of readers. They were called flogs because they are in a blog format and they were peddled off to readers (flogged). It is a bit like soap opera writing, except that the characters are real and the stories twisted.

But Tatiana's flog has morphed also. It is her story of her adventures, designed to keep the readers excited by her unfolding story. But more than excited, Tatiana keeps a set of about 30 avid "premium readers" engadged in a personal e-mail dialog about her life.

"They are mostly parents and werents (people who wanted to be parents but were not). Some are having with Tatiana, who will occasionally drop reference to her correspondence with her advising aunt in her flog, her "aunt" is really the collective wisdom of her premium readers. Possibly unlike their actual children, premium readers find Tanya (Tatiana's digital identity) at least willing to listen and respond to their suggestions. Though Tanya offers little in the way of real concessions to her advisers, for her reckless lifestyle is part of what makes her so attractive.
Tanya is popular with tens of thousands of unique hits each day, but the premium readers are keeping Tatiana feed and entertained - tho she still hitchhikes and runs a foul of the authorities with some regularity. Tatiana is 19 and was born outside of Kiev.

This article can be found under tinyurl.com/digitalnomads and is being turned into a collective story at trashwiki.com/digitalnomads

algorithms to match brain topographies

2008-11-04T10:13:00.003-05:00

Patty asked me to diverge from Am*dam tales. So this an unremarkable entry i penned in the train to Heerlen to see Willow and Hawina.

I've taken up Sudoku recently. i rarely indulge myself in such time burning pleasures, but what i discovered i liked about it is that the nature of the solutions is well suited to my chaotic approach to problem solving. I bounce around trying different sorts of solutions and tease out partial fixes from different parts of the puzzle. When Hawina and i were working on them together it was interesting to see how quickly our two distinct approaches together would reveal an answer.

Equally, part of what attracts me to Sudoku is the elegance of the of the puzzle form. It tends to hold together well, when you decode a piece (at least in the tough ones) they remain tough. And like many a good mystery, it does not unravel abruptly at the end.

Festive Halloween

2008-10-31T22:23:00.004-04:00

Zombies took over the stock market in Am*dam today. Bloodied undead brain-eating specters traversed the distance between the Vrankrick squat bar and the Am*dam Stock Exchange via a couple ATM machines (the side picture, taken by Robin is at an ATM).

Often yelling "Where is my money?" these anti-capitalist activists crawled, clamored and crumbled thru street markets and various banks until the were met by 3 police in front of the Stock Exchange. Local passers by were quite good natured as a whole and some high contrast spectacle occurred (See Kassia's blog for the best photo).

The Stock Exchanged closed itself and the police closed the road, accomplishing the protesters objectives for control of the space, without them having to risk arrest to achieve these goals.
Yet again the power of costume dress.

You can see more and bigger photos of this protest at Indymedia

Time Compression

2008-10-30T17:59:00.008-04:00

"Why dont you know how to cook?" Robin chastised me a couple of days ago. I've actually been feeling unusually guilty about it. Almost all my intimates make something of a deal out of cooking. Hawina, Patty, Caroline, Tree, Angie and Sky are all quite good cooks and care about it, in most cases as a community building tool. But by dinner, my guilt was gone.

Dumpster diving Video Will Be Here

We invaded Emily's Straat. The open air street market today early enuf to successfully dumpster (having missed it twice this week for being late). There was lots of produce to pick from and the vendors responded well when Lena asked in her high dumpster style of long pointy leather boots, frilly blue short skirt and bright Polish smile.

The lovely Lena and i argued about how much we were taking. Even tho it is not illegal, i still believe in a hit and run strategy, which is why i was so happy there were so many of us. But Lena was convinced we would use an eggplant each. So we captured ample tomatoes, mangoes, plums, papayas, cucumbers, kiwis, green beans, peppers, oranges, lemons and lots of avocados.
We were quite discriminating, because there was so much to choose from we could be picky.

Karden (a soft spoken, but clearly clever young German activist) spoke directly to vendors and collected many of our treasures. Karden went to the market most afternoon for years where he used to live in Germany and he developed relationships with the vendors, who stopped throwing their waste away and just put it aside and gave it to him directly, which he was appreciavite of and they in turn felt generous. Creating this type of ongoing relationship with street vendors and elevating the status of trash is perfect for TrashWiki. Karden will likely come with me to Gorleben next week.

It was a huge dinner, which when you added the two bottles of wine and large bar of chocolate cost 1.50 Euro/person. And the reason that i feel fine about not cooking, was that i facilitated getting the big group out there, encouraging scouting which increased our haul and coordinated the massive prep cooking effort. But what really got me was when i tried to find someone to be the chief cook from our 11 person group, there was not really any candidates. Robin arrived back from work and i pressed him into cooking, him reminding me he had cooked for the last 3 days as well. Then he cooked the eggplant (which i think we ate one of), but i basically got the rest of the dishes started and prepared, with lots of help. It is not cooking, but it is organizing which creates meals from self identified non-cooks. That is close enuf for me.

We had a helicopter land right in front of the Casa today, when we were all going to the afternoon market. We saw it land in the playground across the street. a lone local policeman cleared the playground as they were landing. A guy in a bright orange suit jumped out with what i assume was a medical bag and was nearly instantly picked up by a cop on a motorcycle and was whisked off. The time compression was amazing - if all the connections were that fast, you could conceivably have a doctor by your side within 20 minutes almost anywhere in the city. Nitia the photographers image will replace this one, when he sends it to me.

As the helicopter took off, we were just under it and the wind blew through our hats and hair. And within 60s of the take off, dozens of kids were back on the playground, running around and jumping. The Dutch are not just time compressing, they are space compressing.

Surreally, moments after the helicopter took off we walked by two kids about Willows age who had a quite realistic remote controlled helicopter toy, which took off right before us. Nitia got pictures. After a perfect and controlled take off and rise to perhaps 3 meaters, they drove it into the side of a nearby building and it crashed to the ground.

i dont know who this woman is, except that she identifies as from the Dennis Collective. She sent me a couple of nice pictures and said she was reading my blog. Kassia thinks it is not Israel, because there is too much graffiti. I think it might be Greece. Mark and Nitai - who flew in from Jerusalem today to the Casa, both think it might be Israel, tho the front right Temple is unusual. Nitai, who lived in Jerusalem for 15 years, thinks it might be Nazareth.

Earlier in the day, when i asked Nitai how the war affected him personally he said it heightened his awareness - and while he would not wish it on anyone, it does make him more serious about how he lives. "But at the end of the day, it is all about my last name, Peace." He is Nitai Shalom - from Israel, Poland, the US and Iraq. An ambassador for peace.

This is one of Nitai's Photos

Quite Handy

2008-10-30T08:59:00.005-04:00

In 1991, Wam Kat convinced me that e-mail was the future, he was right and i've never gone back (tho i still write some love letters on paper).

One of my favorite tools is tinyurl.com. It creates short web addresses for these tremendous strings you sometimes get. When there is a webpage that is hard to get to TinyURL can help rescue you and they just made this utility more handy, by giving you the option to propose your own name for it. These are the ones i have created so far:

TinyURL.com/paxusblog - this blog

TinyURL.com/paxusTO - my Twin Oaks vanity website

TinyURL.com/polyfingerbook - The polyamory primer - "With Open Hands"

TinyURL.com/constructionkit - Super meme construction kit - thoughts on self replicating ideas and cultural constructs

TinyURL.com/forgetnuclear - Amory Lovin's latest short article slamming nuclear power.

TinyURL.com/forestdance - Pictures of the amazing "Dancing Forest" near Kaliningrad. Lucifer says they dont know why these trees do this.

What you can do with 700 people

2008-10-29T13:10:00.006-04:00

Sky and Kassia just watch some pretty intense stuff go down in Copenhagen around the states attempt to shut down the long standing large community of Christiania.

But the back story is classic. As i understand it when the negotiations between the city and the community break down, the state comes in and reclaims part of the property. These actions were in response to the police destroying a house. Over 700 people showed up and the result is they repulsed the police. But building was largely destroyed.

Of course the other thing you can do, if you have some skilled fraction of those 700 people. Is you can come back the next day and rebuild the building. Which the Christianians are doing.

Christiania is much mroe famous for its cargo/multi passenger bike designs than it is for protests.

Radical Hospitality

2008-10-29T04:25:00.010-04:00

"How can the house have a bike?" Kaudry asks me as we walk home from the gezellig squat cafe at the Partick Fredrick Straat. I am wheeling one of the Casa Robino collective bicycles as we walk thru the well lit and rainy streets of Am*dam. She has just hitchhiked in from Estonia. 5 rides, 48 hours, one difficult driver who would not let her out, nearly no sleep. But her question does not come from exhaustion.

I explain that Robin has a hospitality mission, which she already knows, because he is putting her up and they have never met before. That part of that mission is to provide durable resources to the guests of the house. He does not think of these as his bikes, he thinks of them as our bikes - more precisely, the houses bikes. Sky repaired them all three before he and Kassia went to Copenhagen, their care and upkeep relies on the generosity and handiness of the endless cycle of guests who come thru the Casa.

It seems a somewhat foreign notion to her. i mention that it is like communism, recognizing that it is a weighty word from a person from Estonia. I tell her i was in Estonia, in 1991, when they kidnapped Gorbachev and her country declared independence. I spare her the longer version of our exciting escape with our Lithuanian bus drivers switching seats while driving to make sure we did not have to stop. Of Russian helicopters circling the Riga radio station and us hearing the animated Latvian news announcer reporting on the invasion getting cut off in mid-sentence and replaced with classical music as the tyrants stormed the station. Nor did i speak of us passing Russian tanks which closed off the very roads we were on moments after we passed. We rushing towards the west, to escape the unknown fate of the dissolving Soviet Union. She was perhaps 3 then, it is ancient history.

Earlier, back in the squat cafe i am talking with the charming German anarchist Kristian. He is completing his PhD in security architecture. He tells stories of how military police who are beating protesters in Geneva were shortly before using the same tactics in Kosovo. He points out that when we use civil liberties arguments to try to stop this type of repression we are disabling our ability to access a more revolutionary and rightious position, that the very idea of military police being turned on their own population is wrong. Rather than they screwed up by being too oppressive in this particular case.

He is telling me about the "New Anita" which is the cafe/bar which he helped remodel 3 years ago. Which somehow has managed for 2 decades to operate right off a main street in Am*dam without a liquor license, by negotiating with the authorities. These days are ending here, but they are well established now. A German woman sings a haunting song, in English - simple in lyrics, rich in expression. She is behind the circular bar, which Kristian and friends designed cleverly to double function as a stage for performers.

Kristian tells me that the New Anita is filled with artists types. "As opposed to activists?" i ask. And we agree that we wish they were the same group, yet somehow they are mostly not. And i flash on the brilliance of Casa Robino again. Where the activists and non-activists share the same crowded little space. Where the ideas of people dedicated to making the world a better place, come up over Cruesli with people who are just looking for a place to stay for free for a few night.

Kaudry will learn about communism here. Not the kind that ruthlessly oppressed her country for decades, but instead the kind that great memeticist Marx envisioned. [Robin rightly objects, it is not communism, but anarchism - no state and no private property.]

And long after she was long in bed, and Robin and Anu and i had finished our wild rambling conversation - so common after midnight here. And Kasper had sent back instructions from Syria on how to start my first wiki. i very appropriately, got the first few pages of SharingIsDaring.com up and running.

It has all the feel of the beginning of a revolution.

Eight Lanes and High Class Problems

2008-10-27T08:21:00.007-04:00

The traffic pattern in this city is quite clever. Very often on middle sized center city streets there are 8 lanes of traffic, four in each direction. Most of my Yankee comrades are doing a double take here, because i have failed to identify these lanes: 2 sidewalk pedestrian, 2 dedicated bike lanes, 2 for cars and trucks and faster motorbikes and 2 for trams, active emergency vehicles and taxis which are carrying fares.

The effect is liberating. You can almost always cross the street, because generally these lanes are separated and there is not consistant traffic in any given lane. Bicyclists dont need to wear helmets and can go at a bike appropriate speed safely, worrying only about passing other bikes. The cars most often dont need to pay much attention to either the trams or the cyclists. The tram lanes are generally clear, tho the trams run as frequently as every 6 minutes during peak hours and adding taxis to these lanes gives the taxis a tremendous time advantage in traversing the city and make them faster than the trams or other cars and are operated by professional drivers.

There is also some level of color coding, the bike lanes are typically crimson in color. Thanks to Sky for the above picture. which shows better than anything on Google images the 4 distinct types of lanes in each direction.

Of course my darker green friends will not be happy about special privileges for affluent taxi riders. But for me what is key is the structure is already in place for peak oil driven petrol price spike. And the local gasoline prise is already $6.30/gallon here (something like $4/gal higher than the US?) And if gas doubles here, then the traffic/ridership on 6 of the 8 lanes will get a bit heavier and we will have fewer personal cars. Very civilized. In most US cities, doubling gas prices will have largely inelastic effect on personal car use, in part because there is little capacity of these streets to convert to other traffic modes - what you will get is pissed off car drivers.

The problem with Am*dam is that there are too many possibilities. i recently produced a document called Plan 9 (email me or enter a comment if you want a copy) which outlines 10 different projects i am excited about (Honest Seduction snuck in there as the 10th after the document was named.) And i sent this to some friends asking their help in paring it down with me. Already some great responses have come in, including an offer funding. But the problem is that there are still ideas not in Plan 9 that i am considering - like the urban farmers and sky dry (look for the 5 minutes of Bambi entry) which were being wonderfully thrown around at the Casa last night.

As the CEO of Federal Express said to the Cornell investment committee (when he and i both sat on the Board of Trustees, back in 1979) when we were looking at holding bonds which were yielding nearly 20% or selling them at a significant premium: "That is a high class problem."

Todays dangerous idea

2008-10-25T08:28:00.004-04:00

Mike and i are going back and forth about nuclear power and its desirability. I appreciate Mike because unlike a some pro-nuclear folx (and a fair few anti-nuclear folx as well) he is civil is his approach (and we are not talking engineering here).

So here is our challenge. To take the nuclear debate off these personal blog pages and put it up for the public to see. There are some features for this system that make sense:

1) Supports people loging in and making public postings
2) for there to be multiple topics determined by moderators (cost, climate effect, safety, pollution, waste, etc)- in conjunction with the group
3) For it to be possible to pull down posts which are abusing
4) For there to be user profiles - or links to them, no anonymous postings

So a possible would do it as a wiki - where people could go in and edit and enhance arguments that support their position. The problem is that the wiki format is not well suited to issues that are argumentative. At least i thin it is not. You dont want someone to simply pull off or deface the arguments they dont like. But perhaps it is a all registered wiki with somewhat harsh rules for posting - destintly different from Wikipedia in this sense where experimentation and crashing around is encourage.

There are other web formats that we have been using for project support which might be appropriate. I'll check with me group mind expert and lover Tree about groups and tools that are out there. I know she has worked with these groups that specialize in contentious issues. Time for nuclear advocates and opponents to work together to present our best arguments and let the people decide (or the leaders, if we have to do it that way).

i will brush this up in a bit. But it is beautiful today in Am*dam and that is too rare to sit inside on a computer. Come on Mike and the other pro-nuclear folx reading this blog (who i am sure if we do this right, some of them i will call my friends) let's make this happen!

Enuf to make bus drivers laugh

2008-10-25T06:24:00.003-04:00

"Do you speak Dutch?"
It is a completely reasonable question.

I've lived here of and on for almost 2 years now, i even took a Dutch language class when i first got here and learned some of the basics. But i am terrible with languages. i blame laziness.

And of course the Netherlands is perhaps the easiest country in the world to not speak the official language. English is taught in the schools from an early age. Most young people are in to English language pop music. Anka who is staying here at Casa Robino is from Romania, she learned English watching the 5 minutes of Bambi cartoons she was permitted each day, before "the changes" took place there. And then like many in the former eastern block MTV became her tutor.

So every day i use my minimal Dutch and almost everytime the person i am talking with takes pity on me and switches to English. I do have long record of keeping mass transit operators and ticket collecters amused.

Poltical Paradoxes

2008-10-20T08:09:00.003-04:00

I am the Am*dam chair of Anarchist for Obama. I have to go down to the generous WISE offices and get my ballot and fax it in. Virginia is polling between 3 and 8% for Obama as i write this, but i read a pretty horrifying article in the New Yorker magazine about racists simply refusing to vote for Obama and refusing to participate in polls - who knows how many there are in Virginia, but more than a few.

"Anarchists voting ? But i thought you guys were anti-government?" Sure are. And i hold no illusions about Obama giving up the industrial capitalist/"Free Trade" policies which are accelerating the degradation of the planet and creating wage slaves both at home and abroad. And the political realities are that McCain is much worse, and Palin down right scary. McCain started his campaign repeatedly talking about "Other Wars" - i think 2 is quite enuf, actually about 2 too many.

In 1988 my dearest comrade M and i argued for hours about the presidential election, with him ultimately convincing me that voting was the wrong thing to do. In 1992, M showed up at my Am*dam flat and informed me that "You voted for a winner." After i disavowed voting for Clinton he informed me that he had snuck into my polling place, claimed to be me and voted for me.

I protested "You were the one who convinced me that voting was the wrong thing to do, 4 years ago." He shot back "Things are getting really bad, we needed to do something." The irony lost on neither of us.

It was former US Gen Sec Boutros Boutros-Ghali who famously said "Only stupid peope dont change their minds." Not that anarchists are often inspired by the head of the world government.

PS my North Anna co-defendants appeal went well, their fines were seriously reduced.

Viva la Casa

2008-10-18T17:27:00.011-04:00

Sometimes you just luck out. Casa Robino has the same magical "why isnt the whole world working this way?" feel to it i experienced when i visited the brilliant Barcelona squat Can Masdeu. Robin is working a straight job and sharing the wealth in the form of hospitality. Picture couch surfing, but on steroids.

When i showed up Kassia and Sky had just finished making a dinner which was composed almost completely of things which were gathered at the end of the farmers market. This is a step more civilized than dumpster diving. Produce vendors simply give the people who show up at the end of the market, things that are perfectly good, which they can no longer sell for cosmetic reasons. Vendors directed Sky and Kassia to where their left over food was and they made a wonderful and slightly eclectic meal. Which was videoed by Lily for her Free Food short movie.

The dinner was lusciously international: Lily from Vanuatu/Australia, Anu* from Finland, Anka* from Romania via art schools in Milan and Bremen, Aisha from the Netherlands via the Amma the hugging saint out of India, Kassia who is a yank, but her dad is Iranian, Mindy and Robin* are Dutch balanced by Sky and i holding down the fort for YankeeLand.

* indicates photo above

The conversation was animated, multifarious and fun - from hitch wiki (which i loved at first sight and promptly wrote and entry on hitching on sailboats), to internet facilitated sharing systems, to anarchists with straight jobs ("job" is a swear at Casa Robino, often being spelled out instead of said). To starting an Ashram in Am*dam. To voluntary adventures thru groundcrew.us To the nature of tough punks defending squats. To clown armys. To the bike crowded streets of Am*dam and the lack of Critical Mass actions here. And entire event laced with the sense of possibility which comes from someone being unusually generous. The conversations went late with switching participants - the last finishing well after 3 AM.

Robin pulled Casa Robino from couchsurfing.com because he was looking for something less transient, people who were looking to stay and create temporary community for weeks rather than days. Robin hosted a conference of internet hospitality sites and now works thru the bewelcome.org site.

And they just invited me to be part of their secret Facebook group - dont even bother looking.

God Play

2008-10-06T20:27:00.009-04:00

One of the biggest advantages of being an international activist is you get to meet some honest-to-goddess heroes. I call him Lucifer. He looks like a punk version of Rasputin: chain smoking, scraggly hair, a disarming sideways glance. He is one of these rare people who was doing direct action politics in the Soviet Union before it collapsed, locking himself to the top of smokestacks when one could easily be disappeared by the government for this type of work. He navigated that mine field only to find the current democratic illusion in Russia makes Putin's repression more effective than Khrushchev's could ever be.

Unsurprisingly, he calls me goddess. Even with all my immodesty it does not quite sit comfortably, but i take it in the spirit it is jokingly offered. When i landed in the Netherlands i was quick to reconnect with him. He is one of the only highly active international anti-nuclear activists in Russia - if you want to work in the dark empire you need to go thru Lucifer.

He is working on stopping the shipment of uranium tailings to Russia from France, Germany, and the Netherlands. There is an EU and an international agreement on not exporting toxic wastes. The Russians and their western partners get around this by claiming the tailings are a resource - an input into uranium fuel fabrication. It is clear that with over 500K tons of tailings untouched, Russia does not need more.

The interesting thing is that we may well be on the way to winning this fight. Rosatom has said they will stop after 2009, and amazingly attributed this decision in part to public protest. The German giant power utilities RWE and EOn have said they will drop out of the German consortium, which still has other major utilities in it. This is the result of Lucifer and some German allies fine work.

The effect of this is significant. Thru a chemistry i must admit i don't yet fully understand, raw tailings must be treated to be moved IF they are not considered a resource in their untreated form. Pull Russia out and this incredible quantity of Dutch, German, and French waste needs to be handled and processed, skyrocketing the costs. Another break on the nuclear relapse.

Recently, curiously, both Lucifer and Honza are attributing to me something i did not quite say in the 90s. "Besides hard work, the only things you need to stop a reactor is to be brilliant and to be lucky."

But i will take credit for it. As was pointed out repeatedly this year at Burning Man, the truth is not what is ultimately important, but rather it is the compelling story that we seek.

Gidy in Am*dam

2008-10-04T23:37:00.005-04:00

It is like a huge clock with a mechanism made of canals and trams and hobbit like bridges. I am thrilled to be back - in part because the city itself is the best of contemporary civilization - successfully multicultural, low crime, great mass transit, decriminalization of victimless crimes (like soft drugs, gambling and prostitution) and quite clean. And in part because some of my favorite people in the world live here.

Honza tells a story of his neighborhood association picnic, where some city representative asked what they would like changed and how they were willing to help. They said they would like to have a front garden on their flat, like some of their neighbors had. Within two weeks the municipal work crew with some local volunteers came and pulled the concrete out from in front of their house and delivered planting soil. Honza and Hanka said they would plant and support a garden and they have. Where else does this happen?

Honza also talked about the European Football (soccor) championships. When ever the Dutch team played, the city brought out these large display screens and set them up in some public squares. No big surprise here, the sport is very popular. But what is a surprise is that the city also brings these huge screens out when ever the Moroccan or Turkish national teams are playing, because these groups are a significant part of the local culture.

Strange Religions

2008-10-04T06:09:00.004-04:00

Xavier and Irene (Hawina's niece who lived at Twin Oaks for some month a couple years back) have been gracious hosts to the crashing Star family - which is constantly reconfiguring, but currently is Sky, Willow, Hawina and myself. We are staying in their small apartment in Heerlen, about half an hour walk from the German border on the southern edge of the Netherlands.

It costs 29 Euros to take the train from Heerlen to Am*dam (about $45). And we have had good news recently about our recent choice to become community supported activists. People have been inspired by our various projects and are being generous in supporting us. Despite Wall St crashing, activist stocks seem to be rising (some might argue because of it). So 29 Euros would seem accessible, especially since we want to support the efficient, comfortable, comprehensive Dutch mass transit system.

But it misses the point - the point which is about radical sharing. And about story telling. And about dropping social barriers. And about taking useful risks. And about modeling behaviors for a more sustainable future.

i am talking about hitchhiking.

The Dutch weather is perfect today - it is cloudy and threatening. So even if i am not now wet, i could be in moments. You get to be a hero for picking up someone at the edge of a storm. Many people wave, some indicate that they are only going a short distance or that their vehicles are filled with family or junk. One woman gives me a thumbs down, but she is the exception.

After perhaps 45 minutes (i am without cell phone these days, so my clock is gone), a car stops on the wide breakdown lane entering the highway to the north. He is going to Eindoven and on to Tilburg - this is far enough along my way to give up my good spot, for what might be a poor one further on.

He is totally charming. Speaks good English. He is an art lecturer, who amazingly makes his money from the entry fees to his lectures. He rents out auditorium space, self promotes and makes enough to live relatively comfortably. I can't conceive of someone doing this in the US, unless they had a huge name - and then thy would not do their own promotion.

We talk about Jackson Pollack who i have never understood (my lover Caroline, now in art school in Barcelona, has offered to explain him, but i wanted to do this face to face). And Andy Warhol (who he respects the intellect of, but is not impressed with his art). I ask him about Rembrant and the Night Watch and why it is so important. He talks about artists as revolutionaries, as challenging our perceptions of the world. In Pollacks case, he talks about revolutionizing the tools artists use- throwing out the brush and the eisal. I tell him stories, talk about the commune and of course memetics. He is enchanted, very glad he took the risk of picking up a hitchhiker.

We part in Tilburg. We never shared names - often it is part of the culture of hitching - to be vulernable and nearly intimate with someone and never know this label on their identity.

Op Ed piece for the Richmod Times Dispatch

2008-10-01T23:05:00.007-04:00

I was surprised and amused to read the RTD's linking of my reasoning for protesting nuclear power with a source above law: Al Gore (Opinion from Sept 28th, "Power Play"). I was surprised because the RTD rarely covers anti-nuclear protests. I was amused because Gore has flip flopped on nuclear power- in 1992 he dismissed nuclear power as an obsolete technology, yet after he was elected vice president he was the key decision maker in lending of money to the Czech Republic to complete a Russian designed reactor. I worked against that reactor in the Czech Republic for 6 years. When asked why the US was funding this nuclear power plant, said, "If we don't do it, the French or the Germans will." [Angie edited out - I have to wonder if he would say the same thing if they wanted to build concentration camps.] Now Gore does not want reactors built because of his nuclear weapons proliferation fears.

My principal critique of nuclear power is one of fairness. The current generation receives the energy benefit from nuclear power and many future generations have to pay the significant costs. The decommissioning funds set aside for reactors won't cover the costs of cleaning up the messes these devices create. One small reactor in France has cost over $750 million dollars to decommission, over 20 times higher than original estimates and the work is still not complete after 20 years. The British are looking at a 73 billion Pound Sterling decommissioning tab for their reactors, more than they cost to build.

Every "low level" radioactive waste dump operating in the US is leaking, and there is no place to store the "high level" radioactive waste. If the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada is ever licensed, which I doubt, it is only designed to hold 70,000 metric tons of "high level" waste. By the time the proposed third reactor at North Anna is completed, in 2012 if all goes according to plan, Yucca will be full. Nuclear advocates promise that they can reorganize Yucca fit in more waste. Nuclear boosters originally promised nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter". The respected British conservative newsweekly The Economist said in 2008 that nuclear power was "too costly to matter." Nuclear supporters will say almost anything to get a new reactor built, their jobs depend on it.

The appeal of my 15-day sentence is not an effort to avoid jail time, but to bring the issues of nuclear power into public debate. I have been working against nuclear power in Virginia for a decade. I have gone to every Dominion shareholders meeting for the last 4 years (I own one share) and challenged the president and the board chair on this proposed reactor, met with Virginia's secretary of Natural Resources Preston Bryant on North Anna, spoken at almost every NRC and county supervisors meeting on this reactor over the last 5 years. Still, it was not until I was arrested that the RTD decided to cover any of my anti-nuclear efforts, despite consistent press releases.

I am prepared to go to jail for my actions, and it is quite likely I will. I would like to think that Martin Luther King, who you invoked in your editorial, would approve. I know my 6-year-old son, Willow, does. He and I both want to live in a toxin free greater Richmond area, and his future is the biggest reason why I do this work. I hope the RTD will print my letters from the Louisa County jail.

Paxus Calta is a Louisa County resident and serves on the Steering Committee for the Peoples Alliance for Safe Energy (PACE) and is the Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) an umbrella group for 300 grassroots organizations in the US.

Below is the Richmond Time Dispatch Opinion piece which sparked this response

Paxus Calta and the other activists who staged a protest against Dominion's plans for a third nuclear reactor at the North Anna power plant may be taking their cue from a higher authority than the law: Al Gore.

Speaking at the recent Global Initiative on climate, Gore proclaimed, "I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration."

Sure, Gore was talking about coal, not nukes. But the outer reaches of the environmental movement are not noted for piercing clarity in ontological thought.

Perhaps that is why the activists are appealing their convictions on the grounds that they are not guilty by reason of necessity. But the essence of civil disobedience consists in accepting an unjust punishment in order to highlight the iniquity of a circumstance. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" would have lacked some of its resonant power if it had been his "Letter From Room 106 in the Birmingham Howard Johnson's, Where I Await Injunctive Relief From My Arrest for Non-Violent Protest Against Racial Segregation." By filing an appeal, the anti-Dominion protesters undermine the appeal of their cause.

Mayberry

2008-08-09T23:18:00.003-04:00

"Your old enough to remember President Reagan, arent you?" i asked Leiutenant Porter.
"He was my favorite president."
"Great. When Reagan was negotiating with the Soviets he often used the phrase 'Trust but verify' - do you remember this?"
"I do." replied the commander of Louisa's Special Operations Unit, who had been assigned to watch the protestors at the Climate Convergence
"So that is the policy we are going to use with you. You say you are going to pull back the police cars as a show of good faith and we believe you. And we are going to watch these two intersections and see if you stay pulled out."
"I am fine with that." responded Lt. Porter

I've delt with a lot of police over the years. Turns out my local police are the best i've ever worked with. No unnecessary violence, minimal power trips, no threats.

Sadly for Lt Porter, the graveyard shift supervisor did not get the memo and my first call this morning is that there was a sheriffs car stopping people at the interesections which were agreed to be clear. Porter is apologenic. Major Lowe (Porter's boss) is furious. He looks bad for not being in control of his force. When i first talked with Major Lowe, just before the convergence, he said he wanted Louisa to be live Mayberry (the ficticious sleepy village in the old Andy Griffeth show where there was no crime).

So the safest stretch to avoid police in Louisa county for the next couple of days, is right in front of the climate convergence on Yanceyville road. Strange how things work sometimes.

Breaking daddy out of jail

2008-08-08T08:08:00.005-04:00

“You’ve done this twice before, I have problems also with Dominion’s nuclear stuff, but why do you have to break the rules?” the magistrate from Orange County was angry, referring to my two prior

trespassing offenses at the Exelon Headquarters outside of Chicago and Vermont Yankee reactor complex.

“This is not the only thing I do to try to stop this reactor. I am a Dominion stock holder, I go to every shareholders meeting and talk with senior management about the problems with this proposal. I write letters to the editor, I lobby the county supervisors, I work with organizations which lobby in Washington…”

“Good, so why do you have to break the rules?” He interrupts exasperated.

“Because these things are not effective enough. It is like Martin Luther King fighting for civil rights.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” He dismissed

“You asked me why, I’m telling you.”

6 hours, $1000 bail and two different county jail cells later I was released. Along with 5 other climate heroes, including my dear friends Spot - who i played Magic with for hours until they confiscated our cards.

Angie and Caroline had ended up taking care of Willow for far longer than expected. Most of the activists involved in taking over Dominions “Information Center” at North Anna had estimated we would be released by the early evening. We were quite wrong.

Willow refused to stay home. Angie had warned him that it would likely be quite late before I was released and that he would be more comfortable if he stayed home. He was having none of it, he was going to be there when I got released. Caroline reported that he was incredibly well behaved on the long ride out to the Orange County jail only asking once when they were going to get there and mostly just reading to himself on Angie’s $5 reading lamp.

He finally fell asleep about half an hour before my 2 AM release. On the way home I positioned him so he was laying in my lap while he slept. I got into this work, because it is the right thing to do. But looking down at his sleeping face and tangled blond curls as we drove home exhausted, I know now that I stay in it for him. My determined 6 year old, who is going to wait for daddy to get busted out of jail if it takes all night.

Roanoke College

2008-06-21T16:25:00.004-04:00

"How many people think climate change is a serious problem?" i ask the class of Roanoke College students. Perhaps 2/3rds of the students lazily raise their hands.

"So what are we going to do about climate change? If it is a serious problem how are we going to stop it?" i challenge and start taking down their answers on the board.

"Wind power", "Solar", "Conservation", "Nuclear power", "Saving energy", "Geothermal power", "Tidal energy", "Increased efficiency" - They shouted out with increasing enthusiasm.

"So this is great. Basically we are talking two general types of solutions. Clean power generation and saving energy or using it more efficiently. I do a bunch of work on energy - best guesses are these two approaches will net perhaps 20% reductions each. So we are talking carbon levels by 40%. Except the UN commission on climate change says we have to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. So where it is going to come from? is humanity doomed ?"

An uncomfortable silence fills the room.

"Well there is a very powerful technique which could save us. It is a concept we learned in kindergarden. It's called ..." pause for dramatic effect. "Sharing".

Strange look in students eyes, "what is he talking about?"

And i launch into my rap about sharing system at Twin Oaks. How we share cars and thus consumer over 80% less fuel than our mainstream counter parts. Now some kids are waking up. The professor is clealry in love with us.

And my heart as a propagandist sings.

Burning Down the House

2008-06-18T11:24:00.003-04:00

[This is a slightly updated version of a msg i wrote to the Twin Oaks ex-members e-list about the varnish spraying building which burned down on anniversary night. The building is called Oz, part of the Over the Rainbow theme for the naming of our industrial park on campus, which is called Emerald City. No one was hurt in the blaze.]

Dearest Clan:

i am glad Oz burned. It is absolutely a hassle that we lost stretcher inventory, the capacity to spray varnish chair frames and our drying station for oiled stretchers. This will be headachy to fix/replace.

And this is the kind of thing the community can rally behind. The building itself was insured and the initial meeting with the insurance representatives look favorable and we will cover the cost of reconstruction.

The building lost 3 of its four exterior walls. The two current theories about how the fire started are 1) That it was a lightning strike before a large and fairly fierce storm we had with near by lightning. 2) That lindseed oil rags were improperly disposed of and combusted (this is Woodys theory). The second theory has been discredited by the area manager Roy, who said there were almost no rags there at the time of the fire.

The local fire folk were fast. But the building was a tinderbox, filled with saw dust, lindseed oil and wood frames. We were certainly lucky. Arthen has already agreed to run the clean up crew. He is, in my never humble opinion, a hero looking for a mission, this may well be it. Trout has already gotten a temporary varnish spray station [which was the

It points out that we have an insufficient fire warning system. Smoke was spotted by ex-member Darwin as he was going past on Old Mountain Road, but Shakti would have discovered it moments later for she heard a blast from the area and was already investigating. Apparently we have a fire alert system, which had been disabled, because malfunctions were causing it to call all the phones on campus reporting fires that were not there.

Besides the possible insurance, it is good for the community to rally around a problem that has no member responsible for it. The equipment in the building was quite old, and the ventilation could certainly be better.

Rob Jones rough ballparked a new building of with a 40' X 40' footprint made out of cinder blocks, with the proper venting system in place and the rest of the industrial utilities (including compressed air and 220 voltage) would run on the order of $20K. With a compressed construction time Hale and White could do it in a month. Rob and i talked about using Oakers on cinderblock - he was unimpressed with the idea and thought it would slow things down unacceptably. But we may try harder to cut this corner - or potentially someone internal will spet forward and honcho the reconstruction/replacement job and then we wont use H&W at all and save a bunch of money - i dont actually recommend this path - but no one ever accused me of being financially conservative.

The managers at EC were already talking at the party tonight about expanding the number of people who work at EC in the short term to increase production to replace lost inventory of spreaders and chair frames. This will have the added benefit of training more members in an area where more help is needed. And now there is a sense of urgency to get us to do something.

I have also proposed we radically increase the cost of our hanging chairs from $169 to $250. [Hawina's more modest price increase to $199 was accepted by business management.] These are beautiful pieces, we put a lot of work into them and we have always sold them at a poor hourly rate. Why make them is the are low revenue? Chairs are for fairs. Having hand made, fine furniture like hanging chairs gets us into many fairs, it is more genuinely crafts than anything on a hammock.

The additional cost would more than cover the cost of having these frames vanished at another store. Sabine (who is on the hx biz general management team) and Trout (who manages Oz) seemed unimpressed with this idea.

And i think we are going to rally around this one. We are going to clear the on site relatively quickly, because it is a job well sited to having larger swarms of workers at. We need to pop out a design for a new building (Keenan is rumored to be on it already).

Not slowed down by the bad news, the party after anniversary was one of the best ever. Two different DJs independently decided to play Talking Heads "Burning Down the House"

Paxus in Tupelo
41st Anniversary

T9 Poetry

2008-06-05T19:44:00.002-04:00

There is a little piece of AI that i am enchanted with these days. It is
called "T9 Word" and it is a text predicting data entry system for cell phones. THe way it works is you hit the number key for the letter you wont, regardless of which of the 3 or 4 letters it is on the key, and T9 Word guesses what world you want.

So if you want "Kiss" you enter 5477
. But it turns out that there is another word with exactly these characters and it is more common. So T9 Word suggests "Lips" and when you hit the "0" key it toggles to "Kiss¨.

I like that, lips toggling to kiss.

The Perfect Nag

2008-06-04T00:15:00.002-04:00

i've never had a blog before. And i have a bunch of ideas which i think are important and i am going to hurl them into the blog as we go along and i am inspired to do so. Tonight's memetic construct is the perfect nag - this come from the work we did on an activist personal growth system called co-empowerment.

The basic idea is to design for failure. Especially with project which have lots of individual efforts which need support, designing a perfect nag is one method to increase the chances of success of your project. It goes something like this.

You have a task list. You have an ally who wants to support you with making progress on this list (but likely is not especially involved in your part of the project). They agree that that they are gong to call and check in with you about how you are progressing. This is called nagging.

Perfect nagging is when you premeditate the script for what your nag says when you fail to do something you have promised to do. For example, do they get angry with you? do they cheerfully suggest a new deadline or other possible solutions ? do they send stony cold signals and wait for you to be appropriately apologetic and make suggestions ? Depending on who you are, and what you need - different answers would make sense.

The robust designing of perfect nags could save the world.

And we might be too busy for that (or as Vonnegut said "we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.")

relatively rare mass mailing

2008-06-02T08:13:00.003-04:00

Dearest Clan:

As most of you know, i do memetic analysis. This construct "Searching for John McCain" is one of the better designed campaign structures to take advantage of new voters use of internet search engines as advisors for the election. This project promotes the policy positions of McCains, in his own words in interviews on mainstream media websites. In what might be a close election (tho i think i am with Murdock on this one and Obama will win by a landslide) this tool might reach and influence 1% of voters.

If you have a blog or are willing to comment on other blogs, you can be part of this strategy.

Read the background information on:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/30/23057/4183/973/525851

and

http://www.jabberwonk.com/content/bombMcCain.htm ...

Or simply copy and post the following section of text with it's 9 key hyperlinks:

Who is John McCain, in his own words? McCain opposes raising the minimum wage. McCain's housing policy was built by lobbyists. McCain supports Bush's agenda to privatize social security. John McCain opposes extending guaranteed health insurance to children; McCain supports Bush's Iraq strategy. McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. McCain opposes the GI Bill.

Do you really want to vote for John McCain?

Create your own McCain blurb at http://www.jabberwonk.com/content/bombMcCain.htm ...

Paxus at Twin Oaks
31 May 2K8

Tara

2008-05-30T07:02:00.004-04:00

"Are you a story teller?" she asks me on the dance floor.

"Yes" i reply over the enticing performance of the Goddess Alchemy Project.

She takes my hand and leads me off the floor. We weave thru the crowd at Portland's impressive Village Building Convergence evening show. We find a spot to sit, between the eco-friendly building supplies and the progressive bookstore.

She begins breathlessly, "At Burning Man, my friends and i were doing an aerial performance at the center camp stage and after our show you came up and said you had an important story to tell us.” Her eyes seek confirmation from me. ‘Is this you? Are you the right guy?’ I nod for her to continue, I did not remember saying it was an ‘important’ story, but never one for modesty, i certainly could have.

“That was such an amazing story, about the princess and the three secrets. It was a turning point for me and my life and i never thought i would see you again and i just moved to Portland. And here you are.” i had to explain to Tara that i was not actually living in here. And i was quite touched by the impact the story had had on her.

Last fall, Sabrina could not understand why I went around Burning Man telling the same small set of stories. Besides my need for practice to getting better, it is interactions like this one, sometimes months and years later – that feed the soul (and yes the ego) of this wanna-be bard.

Below is the video which convinced Rob Jones to go to Burning Man "i dont want Hitler angry with me."

Changing the way people think

2008-05-26T12:06:00.006-04:00

One of the reasons i love Abigail is that she does amazing work. Specifically, she runs SWAT - the sexual wellness advocacy team at University of Oregon in Eugene. This innovative program uses students work with interactive workshops and peer theatre work to present to other student groups about sexual assault and how to avoid it.
It is edgy, oft uncomfortable work as they do skits of acquaintance rape where the audience gets to interview the perpetrator, their friend who is convinced they have not done anything wrong and other characters who make this charged scenario more complicated. There are few places which are doing such innovative and experimental work and every school should be.

While in Eugene recently, Abigail and i did an Honest Seduction workshop together, which went pretty well. We were competing with a rare sunny day in Eugene and a folk music festival and still managed to get a room full of people, mostly because Abigail has a fan club in town.

But what was most fun and exciting about the visit was i got to do a presentation to her SWAT class and brainstorm about the next generation of what their work might look like. I presented the basic concepts we are working with in the honest seduction work.

I tried out my new Huxley rant. That this great author best known for Brave New World actually wrote (in my opinion) a better and more important book called Island. But what is fascinating about these two stories, the first dystopian and the second utopian, is that he two cultures Huxley uses the same tools: Sleep learning, mood altering drugs, social stratification, cohesive rituals. So it is, in my thinking with seduction.

Classical seduction (the pickup artist - "power over" type) has developed a tremendous number of tools over time. Honest seduction has much to learn from these pros. Specifically, if you change the intent with which you approach a new relationship, most of these classical tools are actually appropriate: humor, story telling, focused attention, fashion and scent, seductive attitudes and more.

What was most exciting about the SWAT worskhop was the prospect of adding Honest Seduction content to their work on stopping sexual violence. The thinking is that it is not enuf to be critical of what is wrong, there is a need to propose what kinds of behavior should replace it. "How to pick up girls* and keep them: An introduction to Honest Seduction" was a name for a new workshop (where the * was "boys, transgenders, etc"). My propogandist, revolutionary heart beats faster at the prospect.

What makes it all worthwhile

2008-05-17T03:01:00.004-04:00

"Do you remember me ?" she asks smiling
"Vaguely." i answer truthfully, i often tell people "no" because i dont remember lots of people and give lots of workshops where they walk away with more of a sense of me than the other way around.

"We talked at Twin Oaks a number of years ago when i was a visitor. We had lunch together and i still remember and refer to the conversation."

Her name is Jen. She is a cross-pollinator. She has embraced an activist and i would argue a memeticists life style since visiting Twin Oaks after she finished her studies at Cornell. She lives at Tryon Life Farms where Sky and Kassia are staying for the summer.

And she gives some credit to me for her trajectory into this life. She works now to bring diverse networks of activists together at a person to person level, rather than a top to top approach.

It is reminders like this that have tremendous positive influence on me. That people are walking away influenced, activated and engadged. I once wrote to the Canadian rock performer Bruce Cockburn:

I don't measure our success in the number of progressive pieces of
legislation passed or nuclear reactors stopped or other campaigns won
- tho there have been a gratifying few. For me personally, it is
about the lives changed, about the people who because of our work see
the world differently and are now working for the many, rather than
just for themselves. If you look at things the same way, then you
can take partial credit for one more success - me.

Ganas Nights

2008-05-05T23:51:00.004-04:00

Hawina, Corb, Angie, Willow and i all went up to Tarrytown, New York this weekend did a craft fair where we (principally Hawina and i) sold hammocks and hanging chairs. On the way up, we stopped at Ganas on Staten Island and spent the night, both to break up the drive and to visit this unique and interesting community.

On our second night there, the lovely and talented Susan Patrice showed up. Susan is actaully the person who helped build my relationship with Ganas. She was living there when i first visited and we had a wonderful romantic connection which has morphed over the years into a rich if iratic friendship. Part of my love for Susan comes from her stunning organizing capacity. She makes stuff happen. Often without the appropriate skills or resources herself, she still is able to convert good ideas into functioning stuff you can point at and kick with your foot. From urban gardens in Savannah, to overhauled institutional food systems for children in Ashville, to artists workshops and more.

At one point early in our relationship i came to visit Susan in NYC and we emerged from the subway station and boldly strolled down the street. After about 5 blocks i asked "Where are we going ?" she started laughing. "i was following you." The nature of who we are is to charge off boldly, sometimes the destination is secondary.

So Susan is thinking of returning to Ganas. Her daughter, Gracie, is likely going off to school in LA, leaving Susan free to return to the city life and more importantly community again.

I also briefly reconnected with Andy and Katie, who are youth activist superstars in my book. Katie is studying Chinese Medicine in nyc, with the intention of returning to China to study it there for a year or so. They both are conversational in Chinese which is slightly mind bending for me. They also have strong politics, did amazing work at East Wind while they were there witht he nut butters biz and are good conversation.

It's Not a Circus without the Dog

2008-04-28T00:20:00.002-04:00

We've come to calling it "the circus"
Which is the small gaggle of people around my son

This weekend it was Angie, Rosie and Spot.
W/ wonderful path crossings with Beth, Rez, Nadine
and the infamous Johnny Sacko.

And on this trip i was especially appreciative of Spot,
my most complicated friend. Spot has quite some number
(i thought 16, but this might be low) of different personalities
and fractional identities.

"Spot" is an important integrative personality. It empathizes
with the noble trains of the domesticated canine: loyalty, joyfulness, tenacity

Someone once asked me if i had any fear for
leaving my son with someone who many would consider crazy.

I said my only fear
was for someone who messed with Willow
and Spot didn't like it

Between Bed and Brunch - dying

2008-04-28T00:15:00.002-04:00

I have asked her to marry me. She has declined.
When i said to Kat Kinkade
"You're playing hard to get."
She corrected me
"i am hard to get"

God is a verb, Goddess is a noun

2008-04-21T08:43:00.002-04:00

For the last 10 years, almost every full moon, Shal and i climb trees. When i started, i did not really know how to climb tress very well. But with Shal, you dont have to worry about time - he has approximately endless patience. Safety, training, long conversation - Shal embodies these and over the years i have become quite a reasonable tree climber - both technical and free style.

It is a spiritual experience for me - someone who does not identify themselves as a very spiritual person. While we were in an amazing ironwood tree that put us well over the river recently, Shal shared one of the distinctions he had read recently about dieties which really struck me. He described the male god as the action and goddess as a presense. That the female diety is the biosphere and all that is life and the male godhead is the interactions and motion within it.

One of the things which i love about this dear friend of mine, is that he makes me think about things differently.

2 Letters

2008-04-18T06:39:00.004-04:00

Dearest Forbes Magazine:

We were pleased and frankly shocked to discover that you had selected Twin Oaks to be one of 8 modern utopias. We were surprised that the "Capitalist Tool" selected an organization with "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" in it's by-laws as a model to be emulated.

From a classical business perspective it is perhaps easier to understand how a mostly untrained group having amassed a $10 million fixed plant and sitting on over $1.7 million in our self insurance funds might be chosen for your recognition. Members of our community receive and allowance of $76 per month and collective decide how to spend the money which comes in from our 5 major businesses.

We don't consider ourselves to be a utopia, but there is basically no crime, no unemployment, and an idyllic self sustaining environment here. So perhaps some Forbes readers disillusioned with the dog-eat-dog world will drop out of the mainstream and consider coming to our unusual place. Which we joke is "not utopia, but on a good day you can see it from here". And there are a lot of good days.

Paxus Calta
co-manager of Outreach
Twin Oaks Community

To the Editors of the Central Virginian (incomplete)

Wednesday Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearing was an amazing exercise in cherry picking data. The NRC themselves informed us that the chance of a serious accident at the proposed new reactor at North Anna was 1 in 10 million years. They came to this estimate using data about the design of the proposed reactor and performance of the existing US fleet. Of course in well under 10,000 operating years there was a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant outside Harrisburg PA in 1979. We are told, incredibly, that the NRC left this major accident out of the data, because the plant is no longer operating.

Listeners were told repeatedly that nuclear power is cheap. That the two North Anna plants provide electricity at well below the costs of fossil and renewable fuels. All true. However, this is perhaps not the best way to estimate the operating costs of a new reactor.

In 2002 the generally pro-nuclear US Department of Energy funded Sandia National Laboratories produced a report saying that wind power was competitive with new nuclear plants. Since then the price of wind power has decreased and nuclear has increased. What is perhaps most telling is that neither Dominion will not release the price of the "Economically Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" they are considering.

Overheard on the road to Tupelo

2008-04-10T05:47:00.001-04:00

“He cant come and play with us because his dad is upset with him” Willow said.

“I feel like his dad punished him without warning him what would happen if he continued,” I said, then curious for my own performance evaluation I asked “Do I give you enuf warning before I punish you?”

“Yes” and then after a pensive pause, “but really you don’t punish me hardly at all.” Says my son as I carry him up the dirt road to Tupelo, his head huddled in my shoulder, mop top of blonde hair flopping gently in the breeze.

And my heart sings. That is what I hope he says 20 years from now when he is talking to his councillor or to his boyfriend when he is telling his life story.

I feel like we are cutting this huge dynamic deal. With the home school Heroes Game there are times when he objects to the reality which I have described. The goblins didn’t attack in the woods, they attacked in the city. Most adults would push their point, Games Masters are notoriously controlling of the fantasy worlds they describe – players simply can’t disagree with the GM.

But the purpose of the game is teach geography (today we did the tallest mountain from base to summit and the river with the largest flow today) and multiplication. The reality of the game can morph. If they want to be in the city, or for the cheetah to have not died last game, then it’s fine to twist the world that way. As long as he can find the capital of California on the world map.

TOAST gigs

2008-04-09T08:35:00.004-04:00

"We could contact sociology departments at colleges and get them to pay us to come talk with their classes about Twin Oaks." Kate suggested. "It will never work." i replied. And thus TOAST was born, the Twin Oaks Academic Speaking Tour. Ever defiant, Kate created exactly the thing i said was convinced impossible. Now with some regularity members of the community go to colleges and get paid to talk about the community.

Angie and i are currently at Hampden Sydney College in Farmville, Virginia. A town i had only previously heard of because it is where ex-Oaker Rob Mills robbed a bank.

I have no idea who these people are. But the picture comes from the Hampden Sydney College website and perhaps reflects the student life of this all male college (one of the last two in the US i am told by our lovely host Claire Deal, who teaches rhetoric here).

I love doing TOAST gigs. I love how the professors are amused when i call the written material we bring to the classes "propaganda". I enjoy how the students eyes get wider and wider at lunch as Angie casually drops that she and her former gal lover are now best friends. I am proud of what we have accomplished at Twin Oaks that does have model value to the mainstream. I get to rant about how sharing can end climate change, how communes could save us from peak oil and how there is still hope in a world drenched in pessimism.
.

And TOAST has been a great escape for me and my lovers. Caroline and i went to East Carolina University, a large mostly Christian college in North Carolina and got to talk about polyamory in the family and marriage class. Caroline, who is a natural at public speaking, had never presented about Twin Oaks before at a college. And she wowed them, despite their inclinations to be dismissive or critical of our radically different belief systems.

Last night here at Hampden Sydney perhaps two dozen students plus a dozen faculty listened as we described the other American Dream. It is unlikely we will recruit any students from this mostly conservative Republican audience, but the conversation was lively and respectful. And dangerous ideas were advanced, just as Kate thought they should be.

Funology's big sister

2008-04-03T00:29:00.002-04:00

One of the key axioms of funology is that we are looking to drop social barriers to create experiences which are not otherwise possible. That the way to radicalize people is to create an unusually wonderful experience in the context of a party or festival and thus transform their perceptions about what is possible.

I just figured out there is an analogy for why i do workshops. I proselytize about a number of topics: funology, co-empowerment, honest seduction, memetics, polyamory, new culture, nukes and more. And in a good workshop we are looking for a vaguely similar type of barrier lowering that we get at a top ranked party. But instead of lowering social barriers we are lowering ideological ones. A good workshop hypnotizes like the best party music, it creates an experience in which you can imagine things happening and you being part of them in a way in that seemed unlikely or even impossible before the workshop. The job of the cultural revolutionary is to present powerful progressive ideas if manners so seductive that critics change their minds.

Robbery of the Week

Angie gets the prize for most clever amplification. One of my slightly uncomfortable self crafted aphorisms is "Every gift is an obligation." If you have a talent or capacity your job is to figure out how to best serve humanity with your gift and then do that. Angie heard this and tricked it out a bit. "Every great gift has a great obligation." As i was thinking about what i would do this summer, pondering doing more workshops on cultural things or organizing a canvas to stop the local reactor complex from expanding, Angie said an insightful thing. "Many people can stop reactors, very few can spark a cultural revolution." Of course, she is foolishly assuming we will have some measure of success (and there seem precious few people willing to fight reactors these days), but the logic is tight. And in the non-exclusive thinking of new culture, we will try to do it all.

Permanent Memories

2008-02-25T14:35:00.005-05:00

For almost all my life, I was convinced I would not be a parent. For an even larger part of my life, I was even more sure I would not have a tattoo. Things change. For the last couple of years I wanted a tattoo of the symbols which make up my sons name. It starts are the end, when Hawina changed her name I gave her the little bird icon which flies over the i. Her new last name was Falcon so the bird seemed appropriate. When Willow was born, we needed a short symbol for him for all the scheduling and planning we did around him. I constructed a W wich was made out of two similar flying birds. Both dads had Sky as a name at one point and we considered Sky as a middle name, but that felt like to much. So in part because Sky, Hawina and Willow were living in a building at Twin Oaks called MorningStar we took Star as his middle and our family name.

So now I have a bright orange tattoo (Willows and my favorite color) to remind me when I am far away (like now in Hawaii) or when I am right beside him, that our lives are linked.

Never underestimate Witches

2008-02-17T04:18:00.003-05:00

Hawina woke up on the morning of Willow's 6th birthday and turned to her lover Corb and said "i am sad, i think my father has died." But she didn't just suspect it, she knew it. She went to check her e-mail, assuming there would be word from the Netherlands there of his passing. But when she did not find it, her belief was not shaken. Further searching would reveal the e-msg had been diverted to a folder because it came from an unusual place. Her dad was dead.

How could she know this? Is the question that jumps to most peoples heads. True he was sick and had been hospitalized. But how could she know he died this particular night? It is because she is an empath. Someone with an extraordinary sense of feeling, a sixth sense as to things which are happening in the world that touches her.

My scientifically oriented friends will be dismissive of this as nonsense. And this is where i came from, my own years of rationalist training. Repeatable experiments - this is the only truth determining model. Well after decades now of inexplicable insights of the witches and empaths i have crossed paths with, i've decided that science is not the beginning and end of truth. And not only that, but if you limit your belief system to science you miss some of the most beautiful and magical parts of the world.

Long before Willow was born Hawina and i made a life time commitment to each other. Almost 15 years into my unusual dance with her, a lifetime seems like just the right amount amount of time.

Sick Stars and Skipping town

2008-02-13T20:42:00.005-05:00

My whole family is sick. Willow got it first, but in rapid succession Sky, Hawina (picture to the left) and got it.
i dont do sick well. i joke that because of this i dont do sick often - but it seems my luck ran out this time.

There is nothing quite as sad as a sick kid. Willow overall has been pretty great about his ailment which has run him up to 102 degrees and has had us worried. He seems to be getting better, or at least is over the worst of it.

Hawina's father is ill. likely dying. She is flying to the Netherlands on friday to be with her family of origin during this tough time.

At the same time i am going off to do an honest seduction
workshop with the lovely Sabrina in Hawaii. Leaving Sky with the recovering Bino (short for Bambino a name we have given him since not long after his birth - which is italian for boy child)

daily practice - frisee and enchantment

2008-02-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

"Get a daily practice" nags my co-dad, Sky.

"It can be meditation, running with Keenan each morning, or even something you have home grown like co-empowerment. but you need something to get more organized so you will be less frustrating and more respectful of people who you deeply care about."

More recently Angie has struggled heroically to help me to get organized - building tools and attempting to craft better work culture - shared document spreadsheet flow charts of things to do and checking in with me on progress daily.

Angie wants to have a philosophy discussion on why i remain "the most disorganized organizer" she has even know. Hoping to avoid this conversation, i developed a daily practice. It goes something like this:

Everyday, at last briefly - ideally first thing, i will go to the hammock shop and start weaving a hammock. I'll put my labor sheet at the end of the gig with a pencil. On the back of the sheet will be my to do list addendum (to be added to the Angie's automated system when convenient).

I'll think about what is the most important thing to do today, the one thing. And ruminate on the rest of my various projects and relationships and assess if i am doing the right thing.

As i stood in front of the hx, counting the 14 stitches i felt an amusing comfort that i might have stumbled onto something that i can do that might work. I was about 5 minute in but fairly deep in meditation when Apple bounced into the hx shop asking who was going to come play frisbee. .

I was thinking at first - i am just figuring this out, this is important, i should work on this daily practice thing more. But then i went back to first principals "What is most important here?"

Today is a beautiful day. The kind of mid-february 70 degree sunny day, which convinces you both climate change is happening and that some of it is beautiful. So in walking out to the frisbee field i recommitted myself to treasuring these fringe benefits of the collapse of the eco-system.

Eleven others - mostly strapping youth come to the windy frisbee field. I am there early, joking with Ezra. We created Boris Goodenov, for the question in a stylized Russia accent "Are you good enough?" "Yes i am Goodenov, Boris Goodenov from the Soviet Frisbee team." And for a brief period we were all calling each other Boris "Throw to me Boris" or "Boris pay attention" which was a call to everyone in its comic way.

i was the only one on the field over 30 - i guess Elsa is 30. i am happy to be there, i play a respectable game - even have one very nice catch in the end zone and some good passes.

i am deeply appreciative of this very low maintenance body of mine, which allows me to play this wonderful game with these amazing people. i think that every gift is an obligation. And the look on Apples face when i actually showed up on the frisbee field was enuf to melt my heart.

On todays list of things to do:

count blessings - and
1) brilliant intimate advisers
2) treasuring the collapse
3) appreciate rugged bod
4) Bucket and engaging ed

It is too windy to keep playing, we decide on soccer, but the ball is at Kaweah, a good 10 minute bike ride each way. I decide to go get the ball, but confusedly walk off in the wrong direction. Then i hop on a bike, but Noah has gone off ahead of me. I ride to catch up and then i realize it is foolish because he is way ahead of me and much faster than me, even when i am trying to cathc up with him - he is booking.

So i swing thru Harmony, shower, change to another pair of boxers - find a trade local t-shirt. And stumble into the tremendousness which is Bucket - who is using D & D monster handbooks and many multicolored and various sided die to teach fast arithmetic.

"You look thru the closing cosmic portal. What do you do?"
"Nothing" sez Willow
"you see something red, inside." entices Bucket
"we jump thru" sez an enthused Gwen
"Gwen is thru" corrects Bucket.
"I jump thru" hastens Willow
"Jonah?" Bucket looks to Jonah, who quickly complies

"You are on the top of a large grassy hill" Bucket begins in a calm voice
"And when you look over the side of the hill you see 100,000 of these.

"what do you do?" but before Bucket finishes Willow is already screaming and running in place.
"You see a door."
"We go thru it." Shouts Jonah.
"There are 100,000 of these guys outside, what do you do?" Bucket entices
"You could close the door."
"We close the door" advises Jonah
"There is a lock"
"We lock the lock" says Gwen
"To lock the lock you need to solve this math problem.
And you have to do it before the monsters break down the door." Bucket grabs a piece of paper and starts scribbling and the kids gather around excitedly.

Open Love Letters and the New Media

2008-02-06T02:35:00.000-05:00

The nature of privacy is changing dramatically.

Something about this media in combination with cultural shift is encouraging bloggers to chronicle their activities publicly in a way which was unthinkable outside of erotica just a short score years ago.

This presents something of a challenge to this never-humble propagandist. My lovers Angie and Rosie write colorfully about our complicated intimacies in their blogs. Public love letters are not new to me, i posted one i wrote to the rock musician Bruce Cockburn a decade back. What is challenging to me is the idea of private almost cryptic communications posted pubically.

My reflex when in this media is to write to the widest audience. But as they should, my intimates are stretching me.

you
gathering the shards
of cash and tasks
kicked in the head
between snorings
unwilling to be
unstoppably tickeled
welcome

and you
old soul disguised
laughing w/ razor
teaching a clod dancing

Willow Catches a fish

2008-01-31T08:21:00.000-05:00

i have a cool kid. Kids are an amazing crap shot, you dont know what kind you will get and you don't necessarily have that much control over how they come out (parents love to think that they do, but the other factors often overwhelm their efforts). i got lucky.

Willow has some wonderful primaries (people who regularly spend a couple hours a week with him, getting labor credits for this work in my communities elaborate work system). Yesterday, Trout took Willow to the pond with a fishing rod and some of our vegetarian sausage. They were going fishin'.

Our pond is tiny. Since it is principally for swimming, it was designed with upstream filters and catchment pools so it would not have fish in it. But life only being secondarily concerned with the will of man (sic), other things happened.

As Willow tells it, they put a small piece of soysage on to the hook, Trout did the casting and Willow pulled it in slowly. The did this a dozen times with no effect. Willow convinced Trout to pull the hook and afix a larger piece of soysage to the hook and within moments a fairly good size fished, probably a trout (no relations) was snagged. Willow pulled it in with great joy and mild trepidation.

When i arrived at dinner last night, they had already cooked and cleaned it and my son was in story telling heaven. He ran to me in the dining hall and demanded that i gues what had happened. Several people had already told me and my lack of surprise did not slow him down for a moment. He was up in my arms, animated and in full tale. His joy was infectious.

i ate a small piece of his first catch so i could be part of the history. Tasty.

i was fearful becoming a parent. Tho Hawina and i choose it very intentionally and added Sky as a co-parent after careful deliberation, i was unsure if it would work well in my manic life. In retrospect, it is perhaps the smartest thing i have ever done.

i dont advocate parenting for babylonians, but here on the commune, it has been an amazing experience. i am learning about intimacy by working with these small hands and listening to the gentle snoring of this cool kid. My kid, Willow.

Babylon and Avalon

2008-01-27T01:34:00.000-05:00

Some dialects of progressive language have adopted the Rastafarian term "Babylon" to mean the oppressive establishment. The worlds first large city is emblematic of slavery it employed to build itself.
Myself and others are popularizing this term in the communities movement to mean "mainstream culture", as distinct from intentional (especially rural) communities.

i was thinking about this one day when i was visiting the Tekiah community in Floyd, Virginia. i was looking out the window on the lush forest and yard which surrounded the building i was in. "If the mainstream is Babylon, then what is the right name for us, who are intentionally moving away from it". And the name which hit me was Avalon.

Avalon is the mythical island retreat said to be of great beauty. In the important book, The Mists of Avalon, it exists in a parallel world. A world which was increasingly difficult to find, for its existence is dependent on people believing in its goddesses and gods, and these pagan beliefs were fading.

It felt an apt analogy for these rural income-sharing communities, often beautiful and remote. Many of which are vanishing, because the gods of urbanization and private property are so powerful. Tekiah is no more, thought the parent community, Abundant Dawn continues on.

i talked with my lover Tree on the phone tonight. She is working (with my co-dad Sky) with the fine folx at Dancing Rabbit community in Missouri, leading a skill share on group process and facilitating their annual retreat. She went to Missouri from her native Eugene, Oregon a couple of days early to visit a new community where our friends Ethan and Sarah live, another rural community based on service and simple living (e.g. not using petroleum products). Tree was thrilled to get picked up at the train station by a horse and buggy. Often feeling that the mechanical pace she moves at is too fast, this form of transport felt perfect. As did the hospitality of their super hero hosts.

Compersion, Quink and Pronoia

2008-01-26T02:38:00.000-05:00

We are in the business of creating a new culture. Part of this is creating a new language. Turns out there are all kinds of words and concepts in English which are asymmetrically negative.

Jealousy is when you feel bad about your intimates relationship (or feared relationship) with someone else. What if you feel good about it ? There is a word, most people have never heard of it: compersion.

Quink is a word (coined by Tobias Kampf formerly known as Frodo) which is the opposite of trama, when a sudden and dramatic event permanently improves ones life.

Pronoia is the suspicion that the Universe is conspiring on your behalf. It is the antidote to paranoia. And has been popularized by my illusive friend Rob Brezsny.

Now with names for some of these positive concepts, try watching for them, dropping them into conversation (always ready to share the definition) and popularizing them.

Dying at home

2008-01-25T07:41:00.001-05:00

My father is dying. i can hear him coughing in the other room. He has Parkinson's, he's been diagnosed with it for a decade now. i have been spending more time with him recently, in an effort to spell my mother who is his primary care giver.

He is lucky. He worked hard and was successful over his life and now the medical establishment, which is so easy to be critical of in this country, is working hard for him. Because he has access to resources. It is not fair, of course. But it is the system we have, and for him and those who care for him, we are thankful. i guess it is not lucky - it is smart.

We have never been very close. My father, like me, defines himself by the things that he does. He was an architect, founded a firm with him name. And spent the vast majority of his waking hours building the firm, designing and creating beautiful buildings and houses, like the one he lives in. The one i grew up in. The one i am sitting in right now.

He focused on this one passion, i focus on many.