RelentlesslyOptimistic

I support Barak Obama a lot!

I'm thrilled to say that I have put most of my life on hold or handed it off in order to join the staff of Obama's Campaign for Change. I'll have no time to blog for a few months, though I'm sure I'll have plenty to say later.

Please volunteer for the campaign!

MoveOn.org is giving away Obama Buttons

Commerce based on trust

the farmers wife: entrepreneur

"All you need to go into the pumpkin business is a small piece of land and some pumpkin seeds. Most small roadside pumpkin stand are on the honor system. This person had the pumpkins marked with little signs, and you simply leave the money in a box.

Likewise, the fresh egg businesses. One farm wife has a refrigerator next to one of the outbuildings. You take the eggs out of the fridge and leave the money in a container. It's called trust - it works."

This wouldn't work everywhere. Something about the size of a community, and people's ability to perceive themselves as members of a community, allows it.  But this kind of faith in people's essential goodness is an essential part of optimism. The Farmer's Wife has become one of my favorite photo blogs, with usually a single daily post that illustrates something about rural life with an incredible photo. Added to the Blogroll today.

Honoring Courage

Mukhtaran Bibi's story reflects the worst and best of humanity. The NY Times' Nicholas Kristof reports that: "As part of a village dispute in 2002, a tribal council decided to punish her family by sentencing her to be gang-raped."

The punishment resulted from a rumor, later proven false, that her 14 year-old brother had consorted with a woman from a rival tribe. Instead of yeilding to the shame that, under the expectations of Pakistani village culture, was supposed to drive her to suicide, she succeeded in having the rapists prosecuted. Six men from her village were sentenced to death.

The Pakistan government compensated her with $8,300, which she used to start a school for girls in her village, where she then enrolled to learn to read. When that money ran out and the government failed to provide the promised continuing support, she sold her family's cow to continue the school. Media reports of her story resulted in $133,000 in donations to the school, which is now attracting volunteer teachers to teach the 130 enrolled girls.

Last week a court in southern Pakistan freed five of the men and overturned the death sentence of the sixth. The men have already begun to threaten Mukhtaran Mai.

Kristof reports "They are her neighbors and will be living alongside her. Mukhtaran was in the courthouse and collapsed in tears, fearful of the risk this brings to her family.

"Yes, there is danger," she said by telephone afterward. "We are afraid for our lives, but we will face whatever fate brings for us."

Mukhtaran Bibi has been renamed Mukhtar Mai by the "local media here in Pakistan...meaning "respected big sister."

In a time when the term "hero" is applied widely and cheaply, knowing how to honor those who truly do create a better world through their courage can be difficult. This one is easy: even small donations will help  Mukhtar Mai to survive while she appeals the case. Even small contributions will help to keep alive the dreams that she has introduced in the minds of the "little sisters" enrolled in the school she created from injustice.

Via Tom Watson

Group Cohesion and Performance

Close Doesn't Always Count in Winning Games.
Fascinating article about group cohesiveness under pressure. One of the startling things is that more loosely connected groups may function better under pressure "if the team includes individuals who can generate collective emotion when needed."
This resonated with Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and leaves me wondering how much people like this skateboarder and his "connectors, mavens and salesmen" overlap.

In one continuing investigation of a highly diverse high school of 1,600 students, Dr. Morrill found that a single 16-year-old white skateboarder had been critical to the reduction of conflict. "He moves between black, Asian, Hispanic and white groups, and he's one of these kids who's always bringing good news," he said. "He's a very important person in this school."

Cool idea! Citizens post photos of dumping and graffitti, City cleans, posts results

Love Lewisham

You can now use your mobile phone to help keep Lewisham's streets clean! Download the free application today and then start taking pictures...

Imagine the following scenario. As you are walking down your street, you notice some graffiti that you'd like removed...Take a picture of the offending graffiti, enter some details and send it to us.

We will resolve the problem and take a picture of the clean wall after the graffiti has been removed [or the trash has been picked up]....At any time you can visit this web site...to see all the images that have been sent to us and the progress we have made.

Via Purse Lip Square Jaw

 

Only Connect

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,
And human love will be seen at its height.
Live in fragments no longer.
Only connect... -E.M. Forster, Howards End

Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

lessons of a late night dj by kid oakland at Daily Kos

I was working late one night at WKCR FM New York. (89.9 FM if you live in the area.)

Yep, I was a student dj. I don't know why I thought I could work those crazy hours:  5-8:30AM, 2-6AM...etc. etc...but I knew I loved jazz, and I knew that Phil Schaap, the guru of the station, was one of the coolest human beings I had ever met.  Phil simply loves, lives and breathes jazz...and has a profound appreciation for jazz musicians that comes out in everything he does. Phil is also a master at spinning words in long threads of intense build-up that bring home a sweet, oftentimes musical, point.  I owe him alot...and not just for teaching me, like so many students before and after me, about this great American art form.

At any rate, it was early one Saturday evening and the phone rang....

I had been playing Charles Mingus interviews intermixed with his music.  And a woman's voice comes on the line and says:

"Paul...this is Sue Mingus.  I just want to thank you for playing my husband's work."

At which point I'm thinking, 'wow, this it too unreal.'  But Sue follows this up with something for me to think about.

"I'm  just calling to let you know that an ensemble called the Mingus Dynasty is still playing my husband's music live and was hoping you could mention their shows."  Which of course I did.

But the whole exchange got me thinking about any number of things.  First, how my actions in the control booth, the music I played and how I presented it, really did go out to so many people...including, in New York City, some of the very musicians who created that music in the first place and those connected to them.  And second, about how those who really love jazz, love living jazz, and, specifically, the musicians who create the music and keep the art form alive.

Which is something that you always got from Phil.  Phil is a genius at the interview.  He just brings things out of people that you didn't know were there.  I remember sitting in on a two hour interview he did with Sun Ra which was just stunning both for Sun's celestial philosophies and how Phil always got him back to how his life connected with his music. (I couldn't find one of Phil's but here is Sun Ra from a 1989 interview with Robert Franza which gives you an idea of the flavor.)

At any rate, it took me awhile to realize that when artists like Dizzy Gillespie or Charles Mingus or Sun Ra sat in with Phil for an interview they knew they were dealing with two things.  Someone who respected them and someone who loved their music.  And the process of an interview in that context often proceeded to reveal that the musician's life influenced the music in so many ways.

And ain't that the truth.

I know that seems like slim political broth.  But that's the whole point right there.  It doesn't have to be jazz musicians...it can be something else.  When we talk to folks, if we convey to them respect for where they're coming from and knowledge of their path...and if we truly listen to their story....in my experience, they will almost always tell us something profound that we didn't know before.  Phil knew that...and we on the Democratic end of the dial could learn a thing or two about it.

You know, here on dKos we're alot like I was in that dj booth.  We just don't know who is listening or what they might teach us.  And sometimes it takes a pleasant surprise to open our eyes...not just to the power of our words...but to have them come back to us in new light.

From the comments on that thread:

Jazzonia (Langston Hughes)

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

I've always believed that ordinary people have lives that are interesting, full of drama and meaning, and by listening with respect we can get them to share that.

I had a job once where I interviewed (for jobs) dozens of people every week, and I loved that part of it. Someone would understand and connect, and open up to reveal astonishing insights and beliefs.

Too much of our media and culture focuses on the "important" people, and we are poorer as a result.

It's that desire to share that wisdom and to create a shared meaning that I think is part of what drives blogging and the related social software. It's also what keeps me optimistic.

Big Box Conversions

How Communities Are Re-Using the Big Box

"Big Box" stores, like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc., are centrally located, with easy automobile access, and lots of parking. Communities are experimenting with ways to use closed stores, and artist Julia Christensen has compiled a presentation on the creative uses, everything from schools and churches to a Spam Museum.

 Via Treehugger

“It's so putrid you won't be able to take your eyes off of it!”

Litter On A Stick: Billboards Make William Least Heat Moon Blue

A journey free from visual pollution
WILLIAM LEAST HEAT-MOON

"...Not long ago, when I was near Americus, Ga., a woman lighted up when I told her I'd grown up in Kansas City: “Oh, I love so much Kansas City,” she bubbled. “Those lovely boulevards. The Pass-e-o and that Ward Something one!” She paused, her face clouding: “But, oh mercy! What we had to endure to get across Missouri. That I-70, why it's a trashy alley of billboards and sex shops. I tried to keep my kids glued to their electronic games.”

I had no good riposte to her view of Eye-Sore-70 other than to admit my embarrassment at Missourians having more billboards per mile than any of the eight states that touch our borders..."

"...The uglification of I-70 is now so out of control it makes a certain kind of sense to consider that once jocular suggestion to designate the 250-mile corridor as Billboard National Park. A new, 21st century kind of Badlands. As the park motto, we can adapt the famous sentence from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye: “It's so putrid you won't be able to take your eyes off of it!” Come one, come all.

"...For those less cynically inclined, there is another choice. Today we have an unparalleled opportunity to right old abuses and treat ourselves more kindly and also show visitors that Missourians are not numbed-out yahoos caring not a hoot for the native beauty nature granted us.

Kansas City, once nationally known as “The City Beautiful,” should prove its mettle and vigorously call for reform of our trashed central corridor. We should demand that in the inevitable, inescapable remaking of I-70 it become a route of beauty, increased safety and (this is America) improved economic benefit."

William Least Heat-Moon is the author of “Blue Highways.” He lives in Columbia.

Read the entire editorial in the Kansas City Star

Stoplight Turns Red When Drivers Speed: People Object

Interesting idea, and also interesting how many people are objecting to it as if there is an inherent right to speed, as long as they don't get caught. Even the headline is that making people stop is punishment, rather than a traffic control measure. This attitude is common on the road - how many people will tailgate or engage in some other aggressive behavior if you do anything that slows them down? This attitude seems to me another symptom of our inability to teach how to be a part of a community.

Stoplight to punish suburban speeders / Pleasanton finds a way to slow impatient drivers.

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, April 7, 2004: Pleasanton is about to turn the fast into the furious. In a move unprecedented in the Bay Area, the city's traffic engineers have created a traffic signal with attitude. It senses when a speeder is approaching and metes out swift punishment. It doesn't write a ticket. It immediately turns from green to yellow to red.
[...]
"It's depriving you of another one of your liberties  --  going fast," Pattee said. "If they implement it everywhere, there will be nothing but red lights. Nobody does the speed limit."
[...]
"The punitive nature of the signal on Vineyard...."