Wet Noodles for Peace

Yoga for Peace is the perfect example of a wasteful concept that promotes false action in the name of a blanket, generalized principle:

"People from around the world will join together to create peace in the world by performing 108 sun salutations in unison. The idea behind this event is simple and very clear...peace begins within and the goal is to unite the yoga community to create peace in the world."

Guys, listen! I know what we can do! Let's all get together and do an arbitrary number of one of our favorite poses (let's pick one of the easier ones, cause I can't do Chair Pose for longer than a few minutes, you know what I'm saying) right in a row, at the same time on the same day! It'll be like 4:20 for people who have stopped smoking weed because it "makes them paranoid!" It'll give us something to do without having to actually DO anything!

Yes--everybody face to the east and do a sun salutation. Salute the sun until wealthy corporations stop donating unnameable sums to political candidates, salute until Mexican drug cartels throw their guns in the river, salute until Muslim men stop kicking women in the stomachs for allowing some skin to show, salute until every rush hour driver stops flipping the bird because they had to slow down a little. Salute the sun until people stop eating chicken raised on factory farms. Salute the sun until little Billy stops throwing rocks at little David because he's overweight. Salute the sun! Keep doing it! Keep...you mean...it's not helping? Maybe you're not focused enough? Thoughts drifting to that new set of earphones for your iPod?

These events do more harm than good. They fool people into thinking they're making a difference. They provide an outlet for anxiety and frustration, and although that may be healthy for the individual, it does not promote peace. It just promotes yoga.

Kinda reminds me of this:

Public Housing, Private Labor

Disclaimer: If you are reading this in your own home with a nice drink next to you, in a temperature-controlled environment, take a moment to recognize your good fortune. It is not because you deserve it or worked for it. It's because the odds fell in your favor. You were not born in Somalia. You were born with ample control of your limbs. You were born to people who had enough money to feed and clothe you.

You are in the minority as far as Planet Earth is concerned.

“A family's claim to a territory diminishes proportionally as the number of families who share that claim increases.”

Last weekend, we caught The Pruitt-Igoe Myth at Off Broadway. Pruitt-Igoe was a St. Louis public housing project built in the 1950s, consisting of 33 buildings, each 11 stories tall.





Largely due to changes in the farming industry, migrants moved to the city in large numbers over a relatively short period of time. The only kinds of housing they could afford were in decaying inner-city buildings, most of which didn't even have indoor plumbing. As the city's population grew, city planners wanted to simultaneously clean up the inner city and provide humane housing for its new (though poor) citizens. Born was Pruitt-Igoe.

Fast-forward a mere 20 years: Decay, drugs, and high levels of homicide led to the demolition of the project, leaving the space to be overcome by plant growth.

This is a difficult subject to write about. It was simultaneously a massive failure and a massive lesson for public housing systems. Given its large scale, it was also a very visual failure: Here today, gone in just 20 years. As I was born during the final 20% of the 20th century, it was a bit of a shock to realize that no one in my life has ever brought this up. Not in public school, not at home, not in college, not at a tour of the arch, not in the grocery store, not in the news. Not in 2008 during the housing crisis, not on St. Louis public radio, nowhere.

The owners of the project offered tenants extremely low rent, but the state of Missouri did not allocate the funds needed to maintain such a large property. A few years before the first building was demolished, the project was in the news one winter when the water pipes froze over, flooding water and sewage into the halls and apartments.



Imagine: It's January, and you're a single mother with children. Most of the buildings surrounding your complex are empty. The elevator, which is broken most of the time, only visits certain floors, so you have no choice but to take the stairs in order to exit the building to buy food for your family. You grip the rails and try not to slip on the ice, which is a slow process. You do all you can to ignore memories of stories of stairway rapes, muggings, and beatings. It's 1970, and in order to receive welfare, your husband isn't allowed to live with you. You're doing all you can to scrape enough money for a down payment+first month's rent in a better neighborhood, but it's a slow process. You have no family; your only option is to live for a while at Pruitt-Igoe.

"Society's level of care for the poor is its true measure of wealth." -Many People Have Said This

This is because, in the U.S., the poor receive what the self-sufficient are willing to give them. They get the leftovers. Their programs are cut first: See Medicaid in the state of Missouri. (And that article is 6 years old…imagine the state of Medicaid today.)

Fortunately, public housing has learned some lessons since Pruitt-Igoe, Cabrini-Green, and Darst-Webbe.

Oscar Newman, architect and city planner, is the author of the quote at the top of this blog. His book, Defensible Space, examines public housing projects during the 20th century: High-rises vs. garden apartments and town homes. The more adults (non-familial) you share a space with, the less likely you are to take ownership over its maintenance. You will not spend time in that space. This section from chapter 1 is worth looking at, as Newman compares three sketches of communal living with varying degrees of publicness and privateness.

Newman's thesis underscores the lesson that should be taken away from disasters like Pruitt-Igoe: The tenants did not destroy the project. The tenants acted like anyone would in their situation, given the lack of maintenance, financial cushion, and privacy.

There is still state-funded public housing in St. Louis, but some choose to inhabit privately owned, decaying neighborhoods, rather than accept the pennies that conservative politicians will allocate (while looking down their self-righteous noses).



This house is in the middle of an inhabited neighborhood, within city limits. People watched as we took photos. They wake up every morning and see houses like this, that have been in this state for years. No one with financial capability is interested in this real estate.



There is no way to tell how these houses were abandoned and how long it took for the roof to fall in. If you look close enough, you can see items decorating bookshelves, untouched.



These are the options for people who have no family or support system. This is happening here, in 2011, in your home town.

Known and Unknown

I failed. I did not finish Donald Rumsfeld's Known and Unknown. I made it to chapter 20 or so, ending somewhere before 2004. It has been very interesting to hear a conservative's first-hand account of the majority of republican presidential administrations since President Johnson. Hell, it's interesting to hear anyone's first-hand account of the executive branch during the second half of the 20th century (only a decade or so were in democratic administrations). Given, of course, its watered-down politicky nature. This must be understood and accepted.

According to Donald Rumsfeld, Donald Rumsfeld is a likeable guy. He's intelligent—I'm assuming it was his choice, not his editor's, to put quotes from Saul Bellow, H.L. Mencken, etc. at the beginning of most chapters—but his most defining characteristic is his pseudo-puritanical good ole boy-ness. An article featured in Financial Times referred to his schedule as Spartan-like and he is known for working while standing up. He is obviously a hard worker, disciplined and all that.

He's such a hard worker, he worked at Searle for almost 15 years, the pharmaceutical company that created aspartame, which probably boosted his status as a multi-millionaire. While there, he downsized the company's workforce by 60%, earning praise for the company's freshly polished “bottom line.” A winning characteristic of his is similarly unsettling: his ability to go in and meet a goal despite, or in light of, the cost.

He's careful to never criticize democratic presidents (though he came very close to criticizing Jimmy Carter on his defense policy). He does nothing short but lavish praise on the republican presidents, especially the ones he worked for. I guess that's a good goal for a president, to hire a cabinet that adores him, and I would be quick to assume Obama's cabinet offers similar praise for the Commander-In-Chief.

It's important to note his dissatisfaction with the media during the war in Iraq. I remember being similarly dissatisfied, though for different reasons: He criticized the mainstream media's use of sources such as blogs and Youtube videos. He thought they were unreliable. When one of Iraq's prominent museums was raided, he ignored initial accounts and wanted to wait for the “facts” to come in, undoubtedly referring to the AP or a similar news conglomerate with corporate interests. For shame, to assume that the AP's take on an event is the Real, True Account, ignoring the fact that, like all good news stories, any account of the event would ignore some details in favor of others to create an overall impression for the reader to take with him/her. (I re-iterate that this is the most efficient way to spread information, but no one should forget that it's not “the whole truth.”) It's safe to assume that the AP's account of a raid in a country the U.S. has invaded is likely to support national interest.

So what's wrong with Rummy? This is a man who is firmly holding on to a 1940s and 50s American values system in the midst of a post-modern, self-aware digital age. THIS is his problem. This, and the obvious other fact that he was born a well-built white male with enough intelligence to go to Princeton on a wrestling scholarship (though some would see that as a solution). Combine these things with his refusal to admit he may have done things wrong, and you've got the standard patriarchial archetype—big belt buckle, loud shoes, small heart.

Those who are born disadvantaged, who fight their way into some form of success, actually have an advantage over those who were born “with advantage.” I respect Rumsfeld's life and work for the fact that he lived it, probably did the best he could with the values/morals he possessed, and is now donating all profits from his memoir to veteran's charities (as anyone possessing a soul would.) But he was born into an advantage (notwithstanding the hard work he did put in) and doesn't seem to have the wisdom one would expect from so many years in D.C. As a history professor wrote, “Rather than seriously contemplating the implications of the events in which he participated, Rumsfeld spends more than 800 pages dodging them.”

In true politican's fashion (and one must NEVER forget that Rummy is, above all, a politician), any semblance of self-reflection is overwhelmed by the desire to put forth a consistent self-image. The price for this characteristic is what is needed most in regards to a person who is authorized by the government to determine life-and-death matters: Trust.

Withnell

This is the abandoned school across the street. There's a ballroom on the top floor, and sometimes the people who run the adjoining church, St. Agatha's, have dances. I know this because they own a set of these and use them until midnight. They shine on through the bedroom window, rotating green, purple, blue. Given the small congregation and the financial problems I'm sure they have, sometimes I wonder if there will be an "everyone drink the punch" ending to one of these dances. I'll wake up one morning to see the globe rotating in silence.

We've been dying to explore the building ever since we signed the lease. Last fall, the people who own the property had a junk sale in a few classrooms and what used to be the cafeteria. We went in on the pretense of being junk-lovers just to see (and smell) the school. (The school smells as elementary schools should--of oppression and decades of sweat due to lack of air conditioning.) There is an old-fashioned wheelchair lift on the side of the steps, and a stilled windsock hanging from a light fixture in the hallway. The people running the sale, who also own the property, told us the school has been empty since the 1970s. What used to be a German-Catholic parish is now Polish-Catholic. (Insert WWII metaphor now.)

Once we walked around the outside of the school and looked through all the windows. Into the basement, we saw a chalkboard with a hangman game. It probably hadn't been there as long as we'd have liked, given our romantic ideas of "abandoned school" and "the way things were." The blanks were filled in with "Forgiveness," even though the man was hung. Indeed.

The people who owned our house probably sent their kids to that school. They were probably members of the church, and they all lived in community with the other houses on concrete and brick, surrounded by iron fences. They were probably uneasy with how the city was changing (and how their close-knit community was getting smaller) and with the school's closing, they began to feel queasy and probably migrated to the suburbs sometime in the 1980s.

I had wondered if the proximity of such a large, abandoned building would be cause for paranoia when doing things like exiting my car late at night, but that hasn't been the case. The school is a friendly presence, and the streetlamp is a comforting reminder of civilization. The only unexpected knocks at our door has been pizza delivery for the house behind us.

Once in a while, it's nice to look up at night.

Special and Ordinary

It takes 13-14 hours to drive from St. Louis to Austin. Excluding the first 6 when I discovered I'd downloaded the wrong software, I have spent a total of 20 hours listening to Donald Rumsfeld's Known and Unknown, narrated by him, truly.

I'm not even done yet. I'm on chapter 26 of chapter-god-knows-how-many. As of chapter 26, he's only just begun to describe W. Bush's presidency.

I will discuss this in full at a later date. The biggest benefit of “reading” this memoir is to compare Rummy's account with what I already knew from the media. I always “knew” the media distorted events to create a swallowable story that could be consumed in 2-3 minutes, but in my laziness, I push this aside as I take my daily headline stroll across various news sites.

Let me clarify: By “distort,” I do not mean “falsify.” I mean “leave out details that don't contribute to the main impression the writer is trying to convey.” I don't agree with Rumsfeld's perception of certain key events, but it is nice to be reminded that backstory and details are always kept out of national reports in order to create pretty news bites and entertaining caricatures.

As consumers of media, we have shown organizations like the AP, Yahoo! News, and CNN that we prefer summaries to explanations. Have you seen articles that are broken up into two pages? (That's not because they ran out of room.) How often do you click on page two? Web sites track clicking habits and modify their content to accommodate such. Given the presence of two-page articles, I would assume that most people DON'T click to the next page. Half of an article is enough for them (and if they're like me, they skimmed that half).

Blame what you want on Twitter and text messages and technology that warps our ability to think deeply. My concern is with people's understanding of their government, as presented by mainstream media on an hourly basis. News is a narrative. It's an event wrapped up in a story, crafted for easy consumption. Any time a news article references a character that has been written about before, it tries to reference that character's reputation. Take Sarah Palin. She has been quoted many times lamenting media objectivity. This is worth lamenting. Forget the caricature that has been created in lieu of Palin's humanity (whether she brought it on herself or not); forget her lack of grace during interviews; forget her poor thinking habits. The media is not objective. It references knowledge that was distorted from the beginning. The news is not interested in objectivity: It's interested in gaining viewership and mouse clicks.

The news isn't "liberal" or "conservative." It's a machine that shows violent car crashes because people like to look and quotes Jon Stewart because people like to laugh. It talks about Michelle Obama's dresses. It talks about celebrities' life events as though it's news.

But this is not a reason to feel helpless! (It's hard not to feel helpless.) It takes effort to be wholly informed, and it involves sifting through less-popular, less-sexy news sites like BuzzFlash (along with other news sites that don't wear its progressiveness on its sleeve). What I like about BuzzFlash are the links at the bottom to countless other news sites—go ahead, scroll all the way down. Always hold corporate-backed news sources at arm's length, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics, and ORDINARILY with every topic.

I want to know what's going on in the world because what goes on does affect me...eventually.

Porch Garden

Do please step into the garden of my porch...







Pepper blooms:




Tomato blooms:

With your keen eye, you may have noticed the mint looking a little wimpy. As do the hot banana pepper plants. This is because they've outgrown their home! They will soon be re-potted. So far, this has been the only good outcome of all the rain.

It's nice to grow plants, but it feels sort of hands-off for me. I didn't grow them from seed; just put the little sprouts into plastic pots with my new garden gloves. Despite a few drinks from my new plastic watering can and the two instances I've taken the plants inside due to hail, Sun and Rain have taken care of the important things.

I have allowed them to do what they do: Grow.

Sounds very I know.

In truth, I'm going to mutilate them piece by piece, stealing their fruits just as they are ripe. These plants have no idea what kind of thievery that will fall down upon them! They are helpless -- they are rooted!

They are trapped...in...

Windows

towards the end of may

we noticed how dusty all the wood was.

with circadian rhythm on the stereo

we took out rags, dusting our way out the door

and forgot to come back inside.

Hailing in Austin

For Austinites, I know this downpour is welcome and appreciated. I was in a yoga class on Tuesday evening when there was thunder and lightning, and everyone in the room gasped and cried out. The teacher said, "There is nothing better than some rain and Radiohead."

Yes, "Karma Police" was on the teacher's iPod that second.

Yes, 100% of the students were white.

After the class was over, the woman who was next to me (who chatted me up before the class began) said, "We hardly have rain in Austin. That's why everyone was so happy when it thundered." I nodded and smiled.

I had just assumed that everyone cried out because their brains weren't quiet enough. This was probably due to teacher's iPod playing popular hits by bands like Radiohead, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Interpol. On Tuesday it was Fleetwood Mac.

The instructor said, "Relax, breathe, it's just Fleetwood Mac, relax." (Like she's giving us a Fleetwood Mac inoculation!) The first time I heard FM was in a Red Lobster in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I do not want to remember the taste of cheddar bay biscuits while in Chaturanga. How can your mind attain quiet when it's singing along with the hits of the late 70s?

To anticipate your next question, Why do you keep going back then, I will answer: To save money and hassle. This is a walk-in studio where I can pay for one class of my choosing without having to register or sign a contract. For this convenience, I make sacrifices. I am learning new poses, but my goal of "inner quiet" hasn't been met.

At the end of last night's class, which was rife with housebeats and distracting vocals, I overheard one attendant complimenting the instructor on his choice of music. That's when it hit me: These people aren't interested in yoga! They're interested in toning their glutes and thighs while appearing cool. If it was 1988, they'd be doing this instead:

Or maybe life is just that tranquil in Austin. They have too much tranquility, so a little popular noise is peachy. Maybe they all have jobs working with perfectly pleasant people and they have no motivation to zero in on some kind of mental quiet: They're already there.

Or maybe no one pays attention to the music. I can't not pay attention to it (it's my curse) but maybe Interpol and Radiohead have officially made the transition to musical wallpaper. Maybe, due to the large population of young professionals (and within that, a large population of liberal arts graduates) this music is part of their identity, so it is as commonplace as a tattoo sleeve. Part of the norm, to be acknowledged and then ignored.

"What kind of aesthetic did you notice in Austin?"

"There was a lot of Radioteque wallpaper, like spinning plates, but more like, everything was in its right place."

Or maybe everyone had the same thought I did: Turn off the fucking iPod and let us be. But I doubt it.

Grackles

A large group of Grackles is referred to as a “plague.”

I don’t disagree. As I sat at the café in the above photo, I was told they were brought in to control the mosquito population, but some quick research proves that statement to be inaccurate—they eat bugs that can harm plants, but they also eat plants. One web site recounts how some people tried to scare off a plague of Grackles that had possessed a tree: They set off fireworks under a metal trashcan directly under its branches, hoping the noise would make them fly away. The Grackles just moved to a different tree.

The plague convinced those in the local ivory tower—University of Texas in Austin—to resort to violence in a fashion becoming of Texans: they bought shotguns to scare them off. Didn’t work though.

The plague of Grackles is the only drawback of the city of Austin, and for a visitor, it’s more humorous than annoying. Sure, their nests can spread a nice respiratory disease and the uric acid from their droppings can corrode stone and metal, but…they have such unity!

I've spent some time trying to make lazy analogies from Grackles to colonialism, Grackles to religion, etc....but that is too easy, and it'd be doing a disservice to the birds. So I leave it at this: Austin, if the apocalypse ever arrives, at least you can eat the Grackles.

Commodity Correction

(That is the headline on CNBC at the moment, brought to you by a business reporter who has silver-gilded lettering on his business card)

I have learned two important lessons over the past few days:
1. GPS outshines online maps & directions
2. Hotels like to tout “going green” as code for “cutting corners.”

Considering you can see the detail of the stone on my front porch on Google Earth, I assumed “the powers that be” at Google could give me accurate directions from St. Louis to Austin, Texas. After all, Interstate 35 has been around since 1959. Significant traffic increases have to take place before an “Exit 242” is divided into “Exit 242A,” “Exit 242B,” “Exit 242C,” etc. This kind of growth takes time. I guess it’s naïve to think Google would be just as interested in keeping its maps as current as its street views. Instead, I ended up wasting paper (and at least 30 minutes) painstakingly writing down directions, taking care to specify if the highway is also known as US-107 or Frontage Road, Blvd or Business Route, and then taking the wrong exit. Could have saved paper if I had used the GPS from the beginning. Could have been more GREEN.

In the two budget inns I’ve stayed at so far, there are full-color glossy informational cards touting their greenness because they don’t change the sheets or towels every day unless you ask them to. I know this because I read over the card as I drank the coffee I’d recently released from its plastic sleeve, freshly poured into my paper cup, getting ready to eat my continental cereal in a Styrofoam bowl with plastic spoon.

What I didn’t save was coffee as it dribbled down the carafe because of its haphazard design (and my lack of grace):

But now that I have this petty bitching out of the way, I can focus my energy on the beauty of Austin…