no excuses: get off your butts

For awhile it almost felt like fun at the peace rally Sunday:  the warm sun beating down on my shoulders, the smell of wet spring grass, the friendly crowd, the music. Then the man from Gold Star Families for Peace started to speak about his son, a cook in the Oregon National Guard, whose brains were blown out on an unarmored humvee in Iraq.

“If sixty-four percent of you are against the war, where are you?” he asked.  “What will it take to get you to do something?”

What, indeed?  The crowd he addressed at Waterfront Park numbered approximately ten thousand, the largest gathering in the country.  That speaks reasonably well for Portland, but very poorly for everywhere else. In New York, with a metro population over 20 million, only 200 people bothered to march against the war.  That’s pathetic!  I’ve stood in a longer line for a Porta potty  in Central Park.

I know many people believe their actions are futile, but that is simply not true.  We still live in the vestiges of a democracy.  The Bush Administration may be able to disregard the opionions ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand people as background noise”, but if millions of people were out on the streets that would create a roar that would penetrate even the walls of the Oval Office.  If we let our congressmen know they won’t be reelected unless they oppose the war (and warrantless surveillance and US sanction torture), believe me, they would listen.  If we had a national strike that stopped the economy in its tracks, they would listen.

I don’t think a feeling of futility is the problem.  I think the problem is that everybody is preoccupied with their busy lives, and assume that whatever’s happening in the headlines  won’t seriously affect them.They assume they are insulated from societal catastrophe by privilege or just plain luck. 

Sometimes I think its being Jewish, born only ten years after World War II, that makes me paranoid.  I’m often tempted to give up on all this marching and calling and petition signing too, and retreat into my private life, but I’m haunted by a vision that goes something like the I’m living with my comfortably off, educated, cultured family in Berlin, surrounded by Oriental rugs and antiques.  I don’t like Hitler very much but don’t believe Germany’s going to tolerate him much longer.  How much worse can it get?  What can I, possibly, as an individual, do?  Besides, I’ve got to practice the piano and cook the weiner schnitzel.  Until…well, you know the ending.

The 200 person turnout in New York disproves my Jewish theory, though. Besides, Bush is not nearly as mesmerizing a speaker as Hitler, and unlike Mussolini, he’s way too incompetent to keep the trains running on time.  But like these illustrious predecessors, Bush is a Fascist dictator.To call Bush a puppet of Cheney and the neocons is naive and much too kind.  He is a religious fanatic and a war criminal.  He is arrogant and dangerously ignorant of world history and culture.  He has not respect for the balance of power and the rule of law.  He must be stopped.i

On our way home from the rally we got into a conversation with a woman holding a sign saying “Make levees not war.  She and her young son turned out to be New Orleans evacuees.  Their home, their school, and the hospital where her son recieved medical treatment had been completely destroyed by Katrina.  She described how they waited in vain for National Guardsmen to rescue them, and how the flat boats they could have ridden to safety were all gone, taken by the government for use in Iraq.  She described how it looked as they left their city on the back of a pickup truck, buildings in flame all around them.

This woman knows what its like to look in the face of apocalypse.  She found time in her busy life to march.

So if I’m offending any readers, I’m sorry.  When your right to assembly and free speech is gone, when you no longer have congressmen to call or write, when the demise of our democracy is something you’ve failed to prevent and the legacy you’ve left for your children, then maybe a sense of  urgency will finally hit home.  You won’t be able to change the channel  then and your excuses won’t count for much.

Get off your butts.    

the dangerous life of a free range chicken

We aren’t scared of Iraqi WMDs anymore, so now the powers that be would like us cowering in a corner terrified of bird flu.  Every day seems to bring a another news item about a dead duck in Turkey or a dead swan in Poland.  Today a front page headline in the Oregon warned about the danger posed by free range chickens. Apparently chickens running around the yard are more likely to be bit by a migratory bird then chickens confined in cages at factory farms.  Undoubtedly that’s true.  Chickens without a roof over their head are also more likely to get hit by an asteroid.

“Most chickens are raised indoors…” intones the article.  “Huge commerical producers, eager to control diseases that sicken poultry and lower productivity, have had strict biosecuirty measures in place for years”.  Well, one would hope so, since chickens raised in such filthy, overcrowded conditions have a much higher risk of disease and frequently carry bacteria such as salmonella.

Prior to World War II, almost all chickens were “free range”. Most families, even those in urban areas, owned a few chickens .  The chicken was a lot leaner and cleaner, the eggs a lot fresher, and pandemic flus no more frequent than they are today.  Free range chickens are inherently healthier and more resistant to disease, and there are even some organic methods to combat bird flu.  for instance, a Korean study found that kimchee pickles in the feed were surprisingly effective.

So far bird flu’s danger to humans remains theoretical.  It is a disease of birds, no more likely to spread to humans than feline leukemia.  Could it mutate and become a danger to humans?  Sure, it could.  But it would spread far more quickly in a factory farm situation, in companies such as Tyson with national distribution and processing plants throughout the country.  If you want to worry about a potentially lethal health issue, consider the growth of antibiotic-resistant disease, partially fueled by the abuse of antibiotics in large scale chicken farming.  Or worry about  mad cow disease, which IS transmissible to humans.  A mad cow was found yesterday in Alabama.  That’s a lot closer than Poland.

 

clarifications and ruminations

Sometimes late at night my posts drift towards the ranty.  so here’s a clarification on “no more cuts”.

We seem to have lost track of the concept that educating children is a basic societal responsibility, whether or not one has children of school age (or children at all), and whether or not one chooses to send them to private school. There’s plenty of wealth in the Portland area, plenty of people living in suburban MCMansions or million dollar condos, plenty of people sipping ten dollar cocktails and buying designer doggy leashes.  Some of that wealth can and should be directed towards public schools–all we need is the societal will to do so.

I’m sire there are ways to run our schools more cost-effectively, but children are not a product.  Cost efficiencies do not necessarily equate to better education., and they should not be the fundamental value when managing our school system. IT galls me that the school system is asked to make budget cuts year after year when money is misspent in so many other ways.  How can OSHU have the nerve to ask the city to help fund a 60 million dollar tram when a shuttle bus could accomplish the same task?  HOw can Paul Allen have the nerve to ask for money to keep the Blazers here when he is a) a multibillionaire and b) obviously a failure as a businessman and sports team owner?  These monied interests have a lot of nerve.  It’s time for the school board and the POrtland community to show similar nerve and say “no more cuts”1

 I’m glad to see that the Dubai ports deal has (at least allegedly) fallen through.  The way its proponents accused those who opposed it (70% of the American public) of an “anti-Arab” bias was amusing.  It was interesting to note that this blather did not only come from the usual right wing suspects, but also from Democrats like Robert Reich, who are obviously equally tied in to the same corrupt system.

OK, let’s get this straight.  There are bad Arabs, and we invade their countries and overthrow their regime.  Then there are good Arabs, and we invite them to run our ports.  Actually, I don’t think that any foreign state should run our ports, though admittedly a nation that has major ties with Al-Quaeda admittedly raise more hackles.  There are lots of people I interact with every day, many of whom I would be happy to collaborate with in many ways and even invite into my home.  That doesn’t mean I want them balancing my checkbook, reading my email, or folding my underwear.  Some things are just private.  Our ports , like the ports in most nations (including the United Arab Emirates) should be run by our own citizens.

If the Bush Administration is so interested in international collaboration, perhaps they could consider participating in the United Nations, rejoining the Kyoto Accords, or following the Geneva Conventions.

 

no more cuts

I hear that the Portland Public Schools have a survey up on their website where people can choose where they want to make cuts in the school budget.  You can choose to hold all high school graduations in the school gym, or for much bigger savings, slash teacher salaries and health benefits.

The question is:  why makes cuts at all?  Yeah, yeah, I know all about Measure 5 and the expiration of the temporary Multonomah County Tax and all the other excuses I’ve been hearing since my older son (now a junior in college) was a second grader at Chapman.  But believe it or not, there was a time when school budgets weren’t an occasion for slow and steady demolition.  AT one time, somwhow Portland found the money to build tons of schools. Large sturdy schools with wood moldings and classy auditoriums, schools that offered art, music,phys ed, and libraries as a matter of course, high schools that taught six languages.  Neighborhood schools.  The schools that superintendent Vicki Phillips is so fond of closing.

What was so different then?  This is a serious question.  If anyone has a serious answer, please comment. The schools had plenty of money in the sixties, when they were flooded with an unprecedented number of baby boomers.  Yet class sizes were smaller than they are now.  Why?  Was the tax structure significantly different fifty years ago?  If so, maybe we should consider a return to that arrangement?  Did teachers make way less money (adjusted for inflation)?  I doubt it.  Are out of control health benefits and retirement costs to blame?  If so, then that issue has to be addressed. 

Over the past twenty years I have seen parents go far beyond the call of duty to provide a quality education for their children in the face of continuous budget cuts.  They started the Portland School Foundation to pay for additional teachers, raised countless thousands of dollars for textbooks, field trips, even paper, pay for activities like choir that used to be free for everybody, volunteered countless hours in the classroom.  In many elementary schools around Portland, parents are in effect assistant teachers, working for free.

What do we get for all of this?  We get to choose where to make the next series of budget cuts. Or finally give up and against our better desires, opt out of the system.

If Portland , and Tom Potter,truly wanted to support its schools they could do so.  start by rescinding all those ridiculous tax breaks and force the developers who’ve gotten rich building million dollar condos to give back to the city they live in.  Don’t tear up the bus mall for no good reason.  Don’t build the OSHU tram.  Tell Paul Allen to pack his bags.   The city needs to reorder its priorities, even if the rest of the state refuses to.

Children are not a lifestyle choice.  They are the continuation of the human race.  They are our first priority.  A city that can afford doggie day care can support its schools No excuses. 

 

hippie pod people?

On Sunday, my husband and I went to an informational meeting for the Village School, a new Waldorf-based charter school. I’ve long been curious about Waldorf schools. I’ve had friends who’s children attended them, and for years my children and I have enjoyed Waldorf-based craft kits featuring everything from velvet embossing to papermaking. I just ordered a potholder loom that my soon to be six year old requested for his birthday. I admire the way Waldorf integrates visual art, movement, and music into the classroom. The only thing I held against Waldorf was their peculiar belief that children shouldn’t be taught reading until their permanent teeth come in. But the Village School, as part of the Portland Public School System, promised to teach reading at the conventional first grade time.

The Portland Village School’s website sounded lovely. I came to this very crowded meeting prepared to be impressed. Instead, my husband and I both left the meeting with a sharp sense of unease.

The first clue that all might not be the way I envisioned it to be came in a video of the Village School’s sister school in Eugene. IN the video, all the children sat at traditional school desks reciting the “morning poem” in unison, playing recorder in unison, knitting in unison–doing everything eerily together, like hippie pod people. I realized that I’d seen more individual and small group work, and more respect for individual interests and learning styles, not only in MOntessori classrooms, but in our overcrowded local public school.

One of the founding members of the spoke after the video was over, and she confirmed my impression. “Unlike Montessori, Waldorf is not about the individual,” she said. “It is about the group.”

The creepiest moment came a few minutes later. Illustrating a way to learn mathematical concepts through rhythm (nothing wrong with that) the speaker began to clap, one, two , three, one, two, three. Inexplicably almost every one of the parents joined in, until the room was a clapping throng worthy of a Baptist meeting, leading me to wonder–would this group have chanted on command? Sung a song? Drunk poisoned organic orange juice?

It wasn’t until several hours after I left that I realized the big thing that bothered me. If there’s one skill I want my children to learn the most in school, its critical thinking. How to distinguish fact from opinion. How to make educated individual choices. The Village School may do a great job of teaching kids how to knit or draw geometric shapes, but they sire aren’t teaching them how to think critically.

Their absolute aversion to exposing children to mainstream culture also disturbed me. I’m not in favor of television, video games, or junk food , but I’m not about to sign a pledge (required by the school) about what my child can wear or eat.Dogmatism ls dogmatism, whether or not it wears Birkenstocks. Just like the homeschoolers on the religious Right, these guys seemed to think their value system was the one and only way, yet so fragile it couldn’t survive contact with the temptations of mainstream society. I want my children to be free .curious, and strong spirits capable of navigating a complex and sometimes dangerous world.

I don’t know if our experience is typical of all Waldorf schools. But we checked the Village School off our list. In the future, I’ll restrict my excusrsions into the Waldorf world to those great craft kits.

March 19 rally for peace in Iraq

March 19. believe it or not, will be the third anniversary of the war in Iraq.  There will be a peace march and rally held in downtown Portland that dy, sponsored by 127 peace, religious, and human rights organizations.  People will meet at 1:30 PM, in Waterfront Park on the North side of the Morrison Bridge, for a rally at 2PM and a march at 2:30 PM.

I strongly urge everyone to come, no matter how futile an exercise it may seem.  This Administration relies on our discouragement and distraction.  It doesn’t accomplish a whole lot to swear at the TV or sigh in your armchair as you read the paper in the privacy of your home. The only chance we have of ending this war is to bear witness to our convictions on the streets. We need thousands of people out there.  Hundreds of thousands..

For those blog readers with young children, please don’t let that discourage you from marching. One of the sponsors is Families for Peace.  I’ve been taking my son to these protests–sad as it sounds–since he was a toddler in a stroller, and always felt safe.  Even the police wave hello.  Hey, over sixty percent of Americans oppose this idiot war.  Now, almost six years old, he finds it empowering to know that even little guys like him can speak out for what is right. 

Readers outside of Portland, please check out marches in your own municipalities.  Those of you in New York and Washington DC probably have some big ones you can attend. 

Hope to see you there.

 

living in a material world

We all knolw that folks like Oregonians in Action would like nothing better than to carve up farmland (after all, its sitting there not doing anything!) and replace lettuce with corporate parks. What amazes me is how people you’d think would have a more environmentally responsible frame of mind fall for the “information economy vs the outdated resource economy” fallacy.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think a diverse economy is a healthy one.  By all means we Oregonians should build computer chips, sell insurance, film independent movies, write freelance articles, do whatever we have the skills and initiative to do.

But you can’t eat information.  Nor can you build houses with it. It may seem as if my words are floating intangibly through cyberspace, but they do so with the help of a tangible  machine that was manufactured with real resources.  Resources have to come from somewhere, and to imply that we can leave a “resource economy” behind is to believe we can live in a Disneyworld environment where most of the essential labor is performed somewhere else, out of sight.  Like Disneyworld, this is a fantasy.

Regions that have managed to turn themselves into concrete wastelands may have no alternative but to depend on imports for their material resources.  We aren’t–yet–so unlucky and/or foolish. We still have some of the riichest farmland in the nation, relatively pristine waters, even some forests.  Let’s be proud of our resource economy.  A strong resource economy strengthens our rural communities and provides satisfying employment for people with skills other than a college degree.  The key is to manage these resources sustainably and in a manner that the economic benefits flow back into the community.

Natural areas, sustainably managed, last forever.  Technologies change.  You need only to look at the technological advances within the past century to see how quickly they become obsolete.  How long will it be before Intel’s semiconductor factories become as outdated as rotary dial phones?  Intel will move on to fresher territory (or go out of business{ ABandoned factories will sit as empty shells, while the farmland  that was paved over to build them may never grow crops again. 

Sustainable management of farmlands or forests is not rocket science.  All it takes is the will to do so and responsible political leadership that will put some safeguards in place making sustainability more economically appealing. Keeping the profits in the community seems trickier.  For instance, take Tillamook cheese.  I’ve always thought of this local product as a sturdy workhouse of a cheese, good mixed with macaroni or melted on grilled cheese sandwiches.  Yet in New York City apparently its a gourmet luxury.  People pay a major premium at fancy restaurants for Tillamook cheese, and it i distributed nationally.

Someone must be making quite a profit.  Yet, when you drive through Tillamook, so rich with cows, the source of all that cheese, it looks sad and dreary.  Many town storefronts sit empty. At the local Fred Meyer, overweight twenty year old moms stock up on cheap food.  The new library is the first new building in town in twenty years.  Someone is making a lot of money, but it isn’t the people who work the farms, or stir vats of curds at the cheese factory.  I don’t even see any mansions in town where Tillamook cheese executives live.  So where is the money going? This is not how to run a resource economy.

Instead of chasing after national or international corporations who extract our resources, blackmail local governments into giving them tax breaks, and leave town when the going gets rough, take a look at a company like Portland’s New Seasons.  This local supermarket is doing very well financially.  I’m sure owners Brian Rohter and Stan Amy make good money, but they give back to the community in many ways.  They employ hundreds of people in their growing roster of stores.  They support local growers and ranchers, in some cases buying enough or a product to keep the farm or ranch in business.  Because they live here, they support local schools and other valuable enterprises.  They benefit everyone:  the people who grow the food, the people who stock and sell it, the people who buy it.  These are the kind of resource-based businesses we need.

Besides, consider this.  If we have a well-managed resource economy, we won’t be as dependent on the rest of the country for survival, especially those yucky red states.  Should the situation in the country at large continue its downward spiral, we’ll be well prepared for the republic of Cascadia.