The Flying Machine

It's phenomenal to have watched the inauguration week, and to be following along with this new President. Y'all know this as well as I do. I am so proud of my country.

Something I'm especially excited about is Obama's commitment to public service and grassroots community work. I have plenty of friends who are taken by policy, or planning, or economics, or academia, and there's certainly a place for all of that. But there are always going to be overeducated people looking for a job where they can isolate variables and solve problems in the abstract. It's a hell of a different story to bring change on a community level, in a manner that includes and engages everybody and tackles issues in a systemic rather than piecemeal fashion.

Turns out that's awfully difficult. An oversimplification, sure, but it's something I think a lot about these days.

Some thoughts on Obama, us, and the challenge ahead:

Ill Doctrine - As long as we're human, there will always be more work to do.

Chris Buckley -

In his run-up speeches to this moment, Mr. Obama has been becomingly demure. If he doesn’t quite face the challenge that Lincoln faced, it’s still a lulu. He has striven to be realistic about just how steep the mountain is, but he doggedly and calmly exudes the audacity of hope upon which the premise of his potential greatness rests.

Posted by Sarah at 3:13 PM | Permalink

One of the challenges in working alone in my office is that I've got to find creative ways to keep my energy up - to stay awake and engaged in both day-to-day tasks and in the bigger ideas that inform those tasks.

It's all too easy to get bogged down in my to-do list (massive) or frustrated by the fact that I so rarely get to appreciate the forest for having to maintain all of the damn trees. I'm always looking for ways to stay connected to the big picture and to making change. Keeping out of the scarcity mindset and thinking creatively and positively.

I like this BTFI idea:

Call it self-indulgent. Call it a privilege. Call it insane. I won’t argue. But there’s also something incredibly valuable that happens when we dive into the work of making risk-taking an ongoing approach to life and art. And feel free to define art anyway you wish. When we bring that daring side of our selves to the fore, we not only grow as human beings, we increase the chances of stumbling on something that makes true social change possible.

Benjamin Zander, conductor and recent TED speaker, talks about this kind of process as “getting beyond fuck-it”–that place where you realize it makes no sense to continue to hold back, the place where perfectionism and ego fall away and all we’re left with is pure creative passion. Creative passion that can be utilized to solve problems, deepen empathy, increase understanding and change the world.

(via Jen Lemen)

Posted by Sarah at 11:46 AM | Permalink

My buddy Lance is on his way to Boise to campaign on Super Tuesday and I wanted to go so bad. But I have work and meetings scheduled and I couldn't go on 8 hours' notice.

But I am damn excited. How could you not be?

Posted by Sarah at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Since I'm, uh, pretty much livin' the Food Stamp Challenge every week out here in the poorest county in Oregon, I was glad to see some NYTimes coverage yesterday on Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski's participation in the Oregon Food Bank's Food Stamp Challenge - he and his wife ate for a week on $21 each, the average amount an individual receives in federal food stamp benefits. That's $3 a day.

Mr. Kulongoski has made hunger an issue since he was first elected in 2002. That fall, he said in an interview, he was surprised to learn that Oregon ranked high on the list of what the Department of Agriculture used to call hunger and now calls “food insecurity.” Oregon’s timber and agricultural industries had long been struggling, driving up unemployment, and the high-tech boom that had benefited places like Portland had started to unravel.

I've been very impressed with the Oregon Food Bank and the food security work that's being done on a state and local level, and there is indeed a real need for programs like food stamps and food pantries: in Ontario, a town of only 11,000 residents, one food pantry alone serves over 1,000 residents a month. That's not even counting several smaller pantries and partnerships for distribution through human services nonprofits.

Which reminds me - if any of y'all have any super-easy, super-cheap tofu recipes, drop me a line. I'm working with the local food bank to develop some easy, cheap, kid-friendly ways to use tofu that we can demo at the food pantries using products available there; the warehouse frequently gets donated tofu and many people are leery of eating it. (in development currently: tofu lasagna, tofu chocolate mousse, tofu smoothies, and a few others)

Posted by Sarah at 8:55 AM | Permalink

danah boyd, whose academic work I admire tremendously, put together a list of 5 of her 'secrets' to success. It's worth checking out. I particularly like this one:

2. "Learn the rules. And then learn how to break them." I was a punk kid who refused to follow by anyone's rules. I got kicked out of everywhere. I thought that this was radical. When i was in high school, my mother explained that one of her best skills was telling people to fuck off and go to hell in a ladylike way so that they didn't even know how to respond. Over the years, i realized that there is immense power in understanding the rules and norms and tweaking them to meet your goals. Rejecting society is fun as a kid; figuring out how to circumnavigate barriers to entry is more fun as an adult. Do it with grace, kindness, and sincerity.

Posted by Sarah at 2:34 PM | Permalink

I know it's not January 1. But I just found this list of 9 New Year's resolutions for the Left from Katha Pollitt at The Nation and it's dead on. These are the kinds of things that it does one well to hear at any time. Here are my four favorites; you can read the rest here.

4. Don't think your lifestyle can save the world. I love slow food! I cook slow food! I shop at farmers' markets, I pay extra for organic, I am always buying cloth bags and forgetting to bring them to the supermarket. But the world will never be saved by highly educated, privileged people making different upscale consumer choices. If you have enough money to buy grass-fed beef or tofu prepared by Tibetan virgins, you have enough money to give more of it away to people who really need it and groups that can make real social change.

7. Be honest. Withdrawing from Iraq may be the right thing to do, but it won't mean peace, at least not for the Iraqis.

8. Stop treating race and gender and sexual orientation as annoying distractions from the big manly task of uniting America behind class politics. Like it or not, women, gays and people of color make up something like 80 percent of the population. Get used to it! Discrimination--whether it's racial resegregation or denial of reproductive healthcare or antigay legislation--is not some touchy-feely issue of "identity politics." It's a central feature of the social injustice we all claim to be fighting.

9. Have some fun. Party like it's 2007!

Posted by Sarah at 12:52 PM | Permalink

I didn't write anything here on Martin Luther King Day because I was not near a computer. I wish that I could say I was doing something for the common good, but I was not. I spent much of it in a funk, thinking a lot, disappointed in myself for not having taken the initiative to do something tangible with my day. I've been using my newness to this region (and Boise's not-so-political vibe) as an excuse for inaction, for passively reading and thinking and talking and never doing anything toward, well, much of anything.

So today I re-read some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s writings, including Letter from Birmingham Jail. It's one that everyone ought to read, and re-read. The case that he makes for direct action - for doing, for acting, not just talking - is wholly compelling.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

(Read the entire letter here.)

Posted by Sarah at 10:44 PM | Permalink