Happy Thanksgiving

Here's a shoutout to all the hippies growing up in the eighties in Cincinnati. The memory of woodstock was our tutor in those days of Reagonomics...

Popatroper

Before bed....

Rats and Such - Our Can!

Everyone knows the most populous mammal species in my town are rats. They make quite a good living in our corner of town, with our plethora of waste from food establishments, bars, drunks, and visiting revelers.

So this summer, in an attempt to prevent the neighborhood rats from spreading our trash all over our neighborhood, Baltimore City threatened us residents with fines if we did not place our trash out in labeled trash cans with sealed lids. The catch is, we are not allowed to have them out except after 7pm the night before trash day: A bit cumbersome to store a garbage can in our space-challenged rowhomes.

But storage, aside, we were faced with another dilemma. Here is our landfill-bound trash generated by me and my two kids at home over 2 weeks :

Hard to justify storing a whole trash can for us to place this very clean (yes, I rinse my trash before I throw it away) food-free (organics are composted, of course!) trash composed exclusively of plastic wrap and multi-layer, coated papers - not the most appetizing food for rats, anyway.

I thought I could stash my bag in with my neighbors. Unfortunately, this is what their "compliance" with the new regulation looks like:


After two months of violation, I am sooo happy to have found our solution! Three weeks worth of our trash. Here!


Peace to the Earth!

Israel's Grace.

Amazing Sand Art

This is impressive!!!!

Vauban

the Melting Pot!! or not.

I brought the grandkids to visit mom and dad in Cincinnati. Mom made an astute observation while I was home. Upon reflection of the diffuculties faced by Taiwan in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, I commented on the infinite creativity grown out of Taiwan's population I had just observed this trip. She analyzed that this creativity drew from a history of mixing many diverse cultures. So I asked her, "What about America?" She paused only a moment, and replied "America has less mixing."

I had to laugh out loud. A straight-up acknowledgment from my mother on the segregation of American society! She continued, "'We are not really the melting pot."

If ever anyone wondered how Tim and I turned out the way we did, with the perspectives we hold, you can grab a clue here!

the Beauty of Taiwan 2009

The kids have put together their FIRST short movie production of their FIRST trip to Taiwan.

Spend 15 minutes traveling with my children to Taiwan. The sons and daughters of this beautiful island live on...

Music from Fire X's (滅火器) Sam Yang, Freddy Lim (閃靈), Enno, freestylin' Bunun boys we met at dinner in Nantou (南投), LTK Commune (濁水溪公社), and cousin Zulin (吳志寧)!

Enjoy. With Love...


Watch the Beauty of Taiwan 209 in People & Blogs | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

the Genius of K'naan

I love how K'naan's licks begin with topics I find trite, or shallow, or superficial. And then he lifts you from this surface with the lightness you feel in the pit of your stomach as you are carried over the coaster peak; He plunges you down the steep, slippery and fast slope into serious, whole-bodied, heart-wrenching truths of global reality. Before your brain can recover, you find yourself gripped, as in a trance, in his visual stenography... This is the genius of K'naan's rhymes. Add to that a catchy melody & beat, and there you find my current musical obsession. K'naan's TROUBADOUR has matured from the Dusty Foot Philosopher. Check him out!


Note: There are five songs but you have to keep clicking the forward arrow on the video...

Random "All Music" Play

A song comes on the random “all music” play of my computer. It’s got a real nice lilt to it, it’s even a bit sweet. I like how the rhymes roll in the beat. Who is this? It’s not one of my more popular play songs…

It’s Jimmie’s big brother; a.k.a. Felon. A connoisseur of music all the time, my 14 year old 9th grade student proudly offers up his big brother’s demo cd with three songs on it. Because I seemed genuinely interested, six months later, I get handed a copy of the full album: 18 tracks of indigenously Baltimore rhymes. Jimmie is so proud of his big brother. I remember the morning when Jimmie walks into the classroom with a spring in his step, “My brother is coming home from jail!” Another young black male incarcerated; role model and hero to his little Caucasian brother. “I love when my brother is home. He looks out for me.” You can just see the stars in his eyes.

A few months before, Jimmie, who gets up at 5am to get to school by 7:35 every morning, rolls into class 40 minutes late. After class, we ask, Why were you late this morning, Jimmie? “My mom is missing.” What? “We can’t find her. We don’t know where she is. We think she’s somewhere in Virginia. We’ve called her whole family. Nobody knows where she is. My uncle (her brother) is a computer scientist. I’m going to do what he does when I grow up. He makes a lot of money. He really looks out for me.”

Jimmie’s other hero and greatest fan is his father. His father, who is separated from his mother, and married to an African American woman, Jimmie’s stepmom and perchance the link to Jimmie’s African American big brother, role model, and hero. "My ancestors are from southern Italy. In the town where my grandfather is from there is a street named after us." His father who looks twenty years more than his age, in and out of the hospital, makes it into the school at least once every quarter to speak to his teachers about Jimmie’s behavior in class. Every quarter, I get to hear, “I love you son. You are so smart. I don’t want you to have the hard life I had. You are my shining light.”

All this runs through my mind as Felon’s beats belt from my speakers.

NOTE: names have been changed.

Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed!

Am living the nostalgia of the time period. The critical thinking, analysis, and intact political process of the late sixties, early seventies should be taken for granted, however recent times has seen a collective cerebral paralysis and mental sedation in our society. Watching this period piece allows me to revel in this more comfortable memory for one hour and 16 minutes.


Watch Shirley Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed in Politics | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Q’orianka Kilcher is H-O-T!

UNLimited Taiwan

This is old, but I just watched it and it's good. And, YES, my parents did go to OzzFest!

Chthonic

facebook ...hunter s thompson ....new videos to share from my muses

My personal blog competes drastically with facebook with facebook winning out for the time being. It's too easy to hide behind a software platform - not that blogger is not a software platform - but one so much more skeletal in structure than the fully fleshed, replete with stocked refrigerator and even a game room, facebook social networking site. There is a strain of thought within me that wants to recede facebook to the secondary update site in favor of this arena that has not been manifested to any success yet. However, the intention is always there; dormant.

Strange what things guide you back to the roadway of your journey. Teavolve, a friendly, peaceful, spot to sit all day conducive to my creative juices proved to be one key. Another would be my current muse, Hunter S. Thompson (HST), whom I discovered in the quest of making sense of a puzzling, unintelligible Johnny Depp/Benicio del Toro flick I stumbled onto: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" Placed in the context of HST, the film at least has a context, however, I am not sure I would "get" the movie still. More importantly, following the trail of benicio del toro to fear and loathing to HST, led me to my voice that makes sense in my brain. And so here we are. A new post after months and months, and hopefully multiple chapters in my book project.

Here, I share some videos that have inspired me recently.

This clip was so amazing, I was almost in tears. I couldn't say it any better than this, so I will lift the comments directly from Jason Mraz: "Do you think the people on the outside of the dance mass have any idea that there is a jaunty little fellow in the middle who inspired it all? Drop a pebble in a lake and eventually the ripples go beyond what you’re capable of seeing. If you can touch, move, or inspire just one person in your lifetime, it will have a powerful impact on the world." - Jason Mraz
Sasquatch Music Festival 2009


This clip falls into a long line of pretty songwriters on acoustic guitar singing their hearts out captured on my "beautiful" radar. A true connoisseur of beauty, that's me!
Tje Austin

My world has expanded

View Parts 2-5. Click here

11th Hour: Reclaiming Roots

In the body of climate change films, this one is fairly alarmist and dry. There are, however, two gems that caused me to flip back to the film from my solitaire game, bored by the images and monologue and the way the film was structured.

11th Hour


The first point of interest is an old one, but one I find timely and alluring: Humans as parasites, surviving upon its host, unfortunately killing that which it's survival depends upon, multiplying to an unsustainable number poisoning and choking the life of nature.

The second gem is William McDonough. Here are excerpts of his genius:

“We have to see design as the first signal of human intention. And realize that we need new intentions for our future where materials are seen as things that are highly valuable and need to go in closed cycles; What we call cradle to cradle instead of cradle to grave. And that energy needs to come from renewable sources, principally the sun. And that water needs to be clean and healthy as it comes in and out of a system. And that we have to treat each other with justice and fairness. So the design, itself, changes from mass production of things that are essentially destructive to mass utilization for things that are inherently assets instead of liabilities.”

I love the idea that design is a first signal of human intention. Intention is huge. To me, it's everything that matters. And it comes first before all.

“If we think about a tree as a design, it is something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides a habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro climates, self replicates. So, what would it be like to design a building like a tree? What would it be like to design a city like a forest? So what would a building be like if it were photosynthetic? What if it took solar energy and converted it to productive and delightful use?”

What genius?! This is what I studied engineering for...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

According to the official translation:

"Following World War Two they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering.

And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine.

And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

Can't see what's so "vile and hateful", "extremist" about this. "Unacceptable," I'll buy. Perpetrators of such behaviors always find it unacceptable to be confronted with their behavior. My understanding of history seems to coincide exactly with Ahmadinejad's description. Perhaps"pretext" implies it never happened. But it also means it is the "reason" used for the action. And the comprehensive ousting of Palestinians from their ancestral homes was certainly justified because of the holocaust. And did not people from all over the world go to Israel to build their new homeland? And does not Israel raze homes with tanks, make Palestinians carry special ID, isolate them into controlled areas they can only exit from through checkpoints...

...am I starting to sound vile and hateful now?

Heavy Metal in Baghdad

http://www.vbs.tv/vice-films/heavy-metal-in-baghdad/blog.php

Happiness

"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around."

- Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsberg

Baltimore Reads!

Robin invited us to join her at her new obsession, Baltimore Reads! True to plan, the kids and I awoke before 8 to head up to the warehouse of the Baltimore Sun Building downtown. At first, I felt like a tourist, walking tentatively with my children among the well-organized shelves sorted by level, topic, and type. Robin, bit by the bug of Baltimore Reads!, was already attacking the newly obtained books in the back, sitting unshelved still in brown boxes.

A volunteer approached. Did you come with your friend? Do you know how this works? I indicated that we did come with Robin, evoking the response, "Then you already know the deal! She's a pro."

We tentatively touched a few books, but were not fully engulfed by the trove surrounding us... yet. I told the children, "Do you like any of the books? You can pick as many as you want..." It was as if they didn't really believe me. "We can keep them? We can just take them? As many as we want?"

"YUP"

We wandered a bit more. Finally, Ui-Seng saw an old National Geographic with the Titanic on the cover, "Carrie loves the Titanic. I can get this for her!" and then an old Atlas, "Ms. Erin's favorite book is the ATLAS. I will take this for her." It was as if gathering books for others gave us permission to take books for free. The full possibilities of this place began to permeate us. Evains took his first step by picking a book for his cousin, Sage. We couldn't find a book that was tear-proof enough for 1 year old Skye.

The deluge had commenced. We were sifting through boxes of books like old pros, sorting and selecting potential worlds to traverse. My entree, of course, was selecting appropriate stories I thought my children would like. And what a treasure trove, it was! I found several books from Walter R. Brooks "Freddy the Pig" series that both Tim and I loved as children, for Evains. Another about a young ten year old girl from pre-Columbus Carribean Isles who dreamed herself awake to find herself walking along the beach, for Ui-Seng.

The test of true gratification was in the aftermath of walking out of Baltimore Reads! warehouse with 28 books that Saturday morn. The excitement emanating from my children about books! They could hardly wait to delve into them, agonizing over which word world would get their attention first.

Thank you, Robin, for sharing your new obsession with us! Baltimore Reads! Baltimore Reads!

WORDS Words words

"I had expected to feel joy, but instead felt confusion of sorrow, or maybe fear, for it seemed that my life was a hungry story and I its source, and with this kiss I had now begun to deliver myself into the words."

-Evelina, Louise Erdrich.

FRUSTRATION

WORDS! WORDS! WORDS! You elude me! I can taste you on my tongue, grip you in my gut. But you do not take form. You remain a smell when I breathe.

February 28, 1947

On February 28, 1947, Chinese soldiers struck an old woman selling smuggled cigarettes on the streets of Taipei, killing her. One and a half years after the transfer of power from Japan, the Taiwanese had experienced Chinese mismanagement, large-scale takeovers and subsequently suspended state-industries, inept rule, plundering across all levels of society, and betrayed promises and hopes. The Taiwanese were out of jobs, out of power, out of patience, and downright pissed off!

Large-scale protests erupted that were violently repressed by "Governor" Chen-Yi's soldiers. Sensing an opportunity to re-calibrate the levers, the ever-enterprising Taiwanese immediately began coalescing and concocting a plan for mutual co-existence with their new Chinese rulers. Elements of these include:

• Taiwan be given provincial (not colonial) rule.
• Provincial and city magistrates and mayors be elected before June
• More Taiwanese be given administrative, police, and judicial posts
• all special police be abolished and no political arrests be permitted
• Granting of freedom of the press and speech
• The right to strike
• Trade and Monopoly Bureaus be abolished
• Political and Economic rights of aborigines be guaranteed
• Central government (China) repay Taiwan for expropriated sugar and rice

The Governor initially played along with these starry-eyed Taiwanese whose Commander stated "I will guarantee with my life that the central government will not take military action against Taiwan."

....until the afternoon of March 8, when the streets of Keelung and Taipei were cleared with gunfire to announce the entry of Chinese troops. These were the Szechuan 21st Division, an outfit with a reputation for brutality. In the next 4-5 days, random terror was unleashed upon the streets of northern Taiwan followed by targeted island-wide massacre of intellectuals, professionals, businesspersons, and.... those convenient starry-eyed committee members working so hard to build a workable future with the Chinese.

This served as a targeted execution of an entire generation of leaders, craftily employing the tactics described in the popular Taiwanese saying "Slay the chicken to warn the monkey" Leaving a Taiwan society stripped of its leaders, too fearful to rise up against their brutal dictators for the next 40 years....

Scholars estimate that up to 28,000 people lost their lives in the turmoil. During the "White Terror" of the subsequent years, the Nationalists ruled Taiwan under martial law, which ended only when democratization set in during the mid-1980s.

The "228 Incident" remains a defining event in the political divide that exists in Taiwan today.

One of my favorite articles about the incident is posted here:
http://www.taiwandc.org/hst-1947.htm#Nation

Jesus Camp

OK. I have an avaricious appetite for watching disturbing documentaries. Just recently watched Dear Zachary and Body of War with streaming tears at points in the films.

No flick in a long time, however, has had the disturbing effect of Jesus Camp on me, so I am moved to write this note in order to give voice to the flutter in my chest.

It could be the absolute genius in which Becky Fisher employs effective teaching strategies, technology, props, music, and kinetics to "teach" and inspire her children. It pains me in my heart imagining what an amazing school teacher she would be. That jello brain mold and sticky hands thing totally blew me away! "Teacher of the Year" for sure as well as some sort of nationwide workshop conference to train others in her ways.

The other piece of it is the bridge to the spirit world called upon in service to their cause that, for me, is always a kind, compassionate, humble bridge that leads unconditionally towards correct thought and action. I don't believe they would call upon this if their intention were any different. My perception that they call upon it in service towards incorrect path is most disturbing... to me.

Jesus Camp

Aang Ain't White

http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/646.html

Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall
Kennedy/Marshall Company
619 Arizona Avenue, Fl. 2
Santa Monica, California 90401

Dear Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall;

I recently became an avid fan of AVATAR: the LAST AIRBENDER and have viewed the entire DVD series over the course of three months together with my two children, aged 7 and 8. I am excited to hear of a movie coming out based on the Nickelodian animated series!

NONE of the characters in Avatar are Caucasian, rather they span the majority world of yellow and brown people. Waterbenders are clearly Inuit. Aang, himself, is clearly East Asian. The Fire Nation is clearly Japanese. Many of the characters throughout the series represent nomadic and peasant civilizations across the large continent of Asia. Not only are the race of the people clearly not WHITE, cultural cues are also firmly planted in Asian culture and customs. The foundation of the entire series rests on Asian tenets.

My children are mixed race Asian/Caribbean. It is important to me they have a healthy cultural awareness. To caucasianize Avatar with white face will not only misrepresent the essence of AVATAR, it would contribute to a colonial mindset that distorts the power balance between cultures and negatively affects my childrens' sense of self-worth in their roots.

On the flip side, this represents a wonderful opportunity for brown and yellow actors to play positive characters that look like them, and for brown and yellow children to finally see honest portrayals of non-stereotyped characters who look like them!

It is your choice. Do you continue a long history of racist harm, or is it truly a new day in America? I believe if you take a moment to consider, the choice is clear.

YES YOU CAN!

Sincerely,