intellectual properties

environmentalism and religion are both dead

loganotron linked to an excerpt from this 1hr40min panel presentation on “whether the world would be better off without religion”. the excerpt he linked to is section 6 and discusses environmentalism being the world’s newest religion. first of all: deep caring and respect for the earth as an aspect of a religion is not new. second: didn’t he hear that environmentalism is dead?

whatever – the whole thing is pretty interesting anyway.  lots of perspectives and discussions about the role of religion in the modern world.
http://fora.tv/2008/08/19/Would_We_Be_Better_Off_Without_Religion

voteVOTEvoteVOTEvote

halloween was fun and all, but because prop8 was my pet issue this election, i failed to voice my opinion earlier on some of the other things on the ballot that i think are super important and/or i’m passionate about and i think i should blog about those first.

Proposition 2: Fair Treatment of Farm Animals: as a vegetarian for almost 10 years out of concern for animal welfare and the environment, i’m in full support of prop2. this measure will give farm animals more room to do things like lie down that unfortunately many animals don’t already have because industrial farms will do anything to maximize profit, even cruel, disgusting things. also, smaller, better managed farms protect your air and water which are polluted by huge factory farms, which is not only good for the environment but helps family farmers. mostly though, if you vote no on this, you are heartless and cruel.

Proposition 4 aka “Sarah’s Law”: Waiting Period and Parental Notification for Abortion. the third time’s a charm, people. VOTE NO, AGAIN. while i understand the stated fears of repercussions for very young girls (not getting proper aftercare, sexual crimes not reported properly), i think the repercussions the other way (like minors going to people who are NOT doctors for abortions instead so their parents won’t be notified) far outweigh the few instances wherein this might make a difference. this essentially will create a black market for non-parentally-notified abortions, which will cause more problems than it will solve, guaranteed.

and while it might seem intuitive to vote YES on alternative energy propositions, the fact is that both Prop 7 and Prop 10 are flat-out greenwashing that will only result in certain groups/people making tons of money with little benefit to citizens or the green energy market. specifically, vote NO on 7 because it “Caps price impacts on consumer’s electricity bills at less than 3 percent” and “Utilities entering into contracts with alternative fuel providers will be required to sign 20-year contracts.” caps the price? 20-year contract? since when has the energy market stayed stable for 2 years, let alone 20? why is it a good idea to cap and control prices on something that should fluctuate with market demand?  hell, even the UTILITIES are against it, and they’re the ones who probably stand to profit most! the only backers of this are some billionare dude – something is sketchy here. likewise, prop 10 is being funded by one petroleum billionaire who just wants to make a fuckton of money. oh, and it’s expensive and not actually very feasible.

for information on things on YOUR ballot, wherever you live in the U.S., visit Ballotopedia. For info on CA ballots, click here for statewide or here to find your city/county. for a local SF cheatsheet, i suggest the False-Profit 2008 Voter Guide.

ready to-go

i’m excited to get a to-go ware bamboo utensil set to carry around in my purse, as while i try to keep at least a spoon in there for the occasions of eating food on the go, i admit i often forget to put it back in after washing. sure, keeping a ziplock bag with a regular metal fork and spoon in it functions just as well, and i generally like to avoid “eco-consumerism” (buying some new “eco” thing to replace something you already have, which generally defeats the purpose in terms of conservation), but these are things i would use a lot, and purchasing these sets also supports workers and humanitarian in other parts of the world. i’m going to get the black one (with the action pack, which is great because i’m always scrounging for food containers), the cover made by a women’s cooperative on the Thai-Burma border, a region suffering from ongoing war and strife that escalated last year. i also like the newsprint one, which supports CONSERVE, an NGO project in Delhi. “It is made entirely of recycled plastic! CONSERVE employs ragpickers to collect discarded plastic bags and repurposes them into incredible designs and products.”

btw, you don’t have to order them online and have them shipped, as they are sold at numerous retailers (including Whole Foods), including many near me in berkeley, so i’m also going to go support a local retailer to get mine.

i might also have to get myself a hand blown glass straw to put in my utensil set, as i always cringe when i find myself needing a plastic straw.

many thx to fake plastic fish for the links!

swirls and dots

when i was trying to design my most recent tattoo, and when i picked out the new design template for this website, this was the sort of line art style i had in mind: Boards of Canada: Music is Math (vimeo music video)

beautiful! now, if i could just get my tattoo and design template animated….

~via

organic = fad = bad?

this NYT article recently reignited the debate about the growing pains of the organic movement, and whether it’s becoming too much of a fad for its own good:
A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss

i’ve always maintained that the expansion of the organic movement is a good thing. sure, in the case of the article, having an organic garden “installed” and maintained in your back yard is lazy, but it also means that yards in urban areas won’t be lawned-over and that people will pick up the organic food habit and spread it around. it will probably also build community since people will invite their neighbors over to share their bounty.

in a broader context of the “commercialization” of the organic movement, i think we all have fears that these things can “go bad”, but they can also cause a whole shift toward the better. i’d like to think this is one of those shifts. what if there were people in every town in america who did what the guy in SF is doing? think of how many people would suddenly have access to fresh produce, and what a new kind of workforce that could be. not everyone has the time or the green thumb to garden, but the thought of small gardens all across america is incredibly appealing.

and bringing organic food to regular supermarkets = bringing better food to poor people and those who don’t live in the bay area bubble where farmers markets are plenty all year round. i understand that the ‘corporatization’ of organic food has some downsides (many of which are at this point still quite speculative), but isn’t the organic food movement about human health and the environment as much as it is about community building and economics? thankfully organic farming doesn’t allow for the kind of agribusiness conventional crops do, and some people will always prefer the quaintness of a CSA over going to a supermarket, so i don’t see the small organic farm being impacted the way agribusiness has affected conventional family farms due to market expansion. for those who are rich enough to not shop at Safeway to begin with, they can still go to their boutique grocery/Whole Foods/farmers market if they want to, and for those who have to shop at major grocers due to location and/or income, they have better food options on their shelves. i know this debate has gone round and round, but as someone who lives in a neighborhood where the ONLY grocery for several miles is a Safeway, i’m glad there’s organic food on the shelves, not just for me, but for all the people who live in my neighborhood who don’t have anywhere else to go.

however, there is a new book out that makes an interesting point about organic food i hadn’t really considered before, in the context of other “inverse quarantine” consumer behaviors: Shopping Our Way to Safety by Andrew Szasz

“But this is a book about social consequences, not how to dodge the latest designer pesticide, and his logic about the downside of organic food is hard to fault. Szasz argues that the combination of growing wealth inequality, with the expense of organic food, means there is “a class dimension” to eating right.

Those shut out of the organic food market because of cost represent the bulk of the population, and it is a sector that likely will increase. This will result in “two agricultural systems side by side: a large conventional sector that grows affordable, if slightly contaminated, food stuffs for the majority, and a smaller one producing organic alternatives for a minority, largely made up of affluent health seekers.”

This two-tier system for what we eat, drink and breathe creates a kind of “anesthesia” that, according to Szasz “impedes the development of public sentiment that would support a broader reconsideration of the toxic mode of production in general.”

– from the Berkeley Daily Planet book review

so the argument here is that once the upper-classes feel safe, they stop caring about how everyone else might be affected (“anesthesia”). they send their kids to private schools (which affects public school funding), buy expensive organic food (but don’t care about how that affects the food sources of others), build fences around their mansions and practice NIMBYism (while poor neighborhoods lack public services), and as long as their world seems good, the people with the power don’t put up much of a fight to help or protect others.

so is the organic food movement so totally elitist that this would be true? so much of what i see going on in the organic food movement here in the bay area is about helping and protecting EVERYONE, not just the foodies at chez panisse, but this idea that the movement being largely for the affluent weakens broader public support is an interesting aspect to consider. i suppose i should read the book to see if there are case studies presented to support this, but it seems to me that eventually there’s always a “trickle down” of preferences in consumer culture, from fashion to food, and that organic food showing up more and more at Safeway is evidence of that, which, to me, is a good thing.

emptiness: friend or enemy?

a most excellent blog post:

“Fear of unpunctuated silence, or emptiness sucks.”

on coping mechanisms, routines, and things we do to fill what feel like “empty” spaces in our lives instead of just enjoying the empty space. why is it so hard for some of us to relax or be still? why do we fill our lives with chatter and objects and television and twitter and txts and drama and shopping and eating and drinking and smoking and seeking? what is it that we are trying to fill, avoid, or find? emptiness as a state of being isn’t necessarily negative, although most people interpret it that way. achieving emptiness is what meditation is all about – clearing your mind, just being. but for many people, “emptiness” feels like loneliness and isolation because of what the emptiness reminds us of: what’s missing.

her blog, Fake Plastic Fish, is generally focused on her mission to reduce the amount of plastic in her life, so while this particular post is a bit off-topic, it’s really not. to some extent, for some of us, focusing on those kinds of things is another way we fill the spaces in our lives, and while it seems like a good cause, if you become obsessive about it, as arduous points out in her recent post about compromise, whilst saving the planet/sitting on your moral high horse, you might be hurting your relationships, and so yes, extreme “environmentalism” can become just another crutch, another wall to put up around you. this is definitely something i have been struggling with.

i fill my spaces with a lot of things. blogging is one of them. i know this blog gets preachy at times, and i always have to reel myself back in after those stretches. i struggle with wondering why i can’t just be silent.

parting words

George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan:

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

sometimes the surreality of this presidency is overwhelming.

srsly.

i’m still appalled and confused by the number of people i see who continue to do recreational drugs that they are well aware fund violence/genocide/terrorism. the same community of people who are vocal about sustainability and social justice and hyperconscious about where their food and clothing comes from and all about “green” this and “green” that can be found behind closed doors and in bathrooms at parties snorting shit that came up through some of the most violent and ecologically damaging channels in the world. to those who find this judgmental: i suppose it is. if there is one single place in my community that i see a great abyss between “talking the talk” and “walking the walk”, it’s in their seemingly effortless ability to drop all moral codes when it comes to their personal drug choices. like, you think it’s “wrong” to shop at Wal-Mart, but spending $100 for your weekend cocaine binge is cool? WTF, people.

UPDATE: a friend has sent me some information about an investigative journalist who wants to interview people (they can remain anonymous) who are educated, use coke recreationally, and care about the environment. his last piece about coke was on NPR.

I’m working in a print story from Colombia. It’s about a government program to raise awareness of the environmental problems associated with cocaine use. The gist is that there are people who drive hybrids, recycle, etc, but also use cocaine.

The thing I’m missing is a comment from someone in the target audience–a well-educated professional with green sensibilities who is also a recreational cocaine user.

Here’s the question: Are recreational cocaine users (I don’t mean addicts) apt to pay enough attention to cocaine’s eco-harshness to actually change behavior? Or does that even register when they are making the decision to buy or use cocaine? The ideal source would be a well-educated, current cocaine user with green sensibilities. And I could grant anonymity because they’d be admitting to an illegal activity.

if you would like to volunteer for this, email me (PRIVATELY, DUH) and i will put you in touch.

properly EVACuated

so, yes, the huge party we planned to throw in the mountains this weekend was postponed due to those mountains being on fire. however, not content to just throw up hands and spend the weekend drinking beer, BBQing and watching fireworks like the rest of America, the False Profit crew instead rallied to create a replacement event, properly named EVAC!, on the fly. there was too much energy, too much excitement, too many resources, too much WANT to let mother nature keep us down. there was still a BBQ and beer drinking and badminton and frisbee and traditional enjoyment of the 4th of july on Friday afternoon at Lake Anza in the berkeley hills, and the tradition of watching the fog change colors from the comfort of jason’s hot tub later that night, but then it was back to reconstruction.

thankfully, a venue was available, a warehouse space of a friend, and as soon as the word “yes” was uttered, the team began shifting everything from outdoor to indoor focus. saturday morning around 11 am jay and i arrived at the warehouse, which had already been cleared out by a team the day before, and from then until about 6:30 pm it was the usual procedure to transform an empty cement box into a comfortable, inviting, and aesthetically appealing entertainment venue. there was carpentry to be done (build DJ booth), electrical work to figure out (patch custom power box into existing system), sound system placement, lighting design, outdoor perimeter to be defined, food and beverage organization, art to be hung and presented, and creation of a comfortable, fluffy chill space for people to relax into. to have put it all together in more or less 8 hours is no small feat. having compressed amount of time means everything is done much more minimally, but in some ways also makes it all more efficient.

we went home for about two hours to eat and change, and then headed back. from the time the doors opened, the party expanded rapidly to the point that we had to stop letting people in. it was a sweaty mass of people inside, having a brilliant time. the night flowed perfectly, with only one moment of “oh shit” when someone hit the “the cops are here” button by accident. false alarm! please continue partying.

at one point, i realized i was having one of those moments on the dancefloor that i’m always searching for: i wasn’t thinking about tomorrow, or yesterday, or work, or relationships, or any of the little things that tend to spin in my brain, or even occupied with keeping tabs on the logistics of the party as i am wont to do (especially when i had volunteered to be the sober police liaison for the night); i was surrounded by beautiful humans and i was completely happy and enjoying myself. i realized, again, at that moment, how much all of this means to me, particularly those moments. like everything else (most especially burning man), i tend to constantly weigh the merits and drawbacks of putting such extensive amounts of time and resources into something so decadent that many others would not only see as “wasteful”, but perhaps even selfish, and for this reason am generally not the most optimistic or most “psyched” when it comes to investing in these things. i often let the nagging guilts associated with such privilege get to me, which makes me reluctant to enjoy. is simply creating a joyful experience a good use of so much energy, so much thought, so much money? is escapism a valuable product? forgetting any moral imperatives or contexts outside of our own, when you consider this in terms of our limited time on this planet, the answer can only be yes. and not only were we having an excellent time and releasing some steam ourselves; many guests throughout the night expressed their gratitude and enjoyment.

when the morning light began to creep in the skylights and the crowd began to thin, we started to slowly shift gears away from blissed-out back into logistical mode. after the last beat dropped at 6:00AM, like a video in rewind we quickly took apart, removed, undid, cleaned and repacked everything until once again there was an empty cement box. to say it was surreal to stand there and look at that empty room after when not but a few hours before it was filled to capacity with people and lights and sound is an understatement.

at 8:00am jay and i left and went to our friend’s house for some breakfast and a much needed soak in his outdoor hottub to soothe our tired bodies. by 11:00am, we were home and in bed, 24 hours later.

it’s so mind-boggling to me, not only that such a thing CAN happen, but that WE can make such a thing happen (i said to someone who asked how we were dealing with it all – “shit happened, and so we’re making shit happen”) . it’s also rather mind boggling how some 24 hours are so, so much more filled with life and joy and love while others are so completely mundane. i admire those who strive to produce as many of the joy-filled time capsules as possible, not only for themselves, but to share with others, and i feel incredibly blessed to have a group of people who are HELL BENT on making those moments happen.

Sweet visuals at EVAC!, originally uploaded by JasonUnbound.
dealt an unexpected, last-minute load of wildfire-singed lemons, false profit deftly enters the lemonade business.
and this was some serious lemonade.

despite being 100% sober throughout all of EVAC and getting tons of sleep yesterday, my brain is still totally fried. i also have one of those deep body aches that only means i danced like Gumby for a lot of continuous hours, but it hurts good.

props: to everyone who worked so hard to pull that one out of a striped hat. FEMA needs crews like ours.

giving it all to keep the Fun Index from dropping like it’s hot: priceless.

burning need for change

for the past three years some friends of ours have put on this super awesome disco camping event known as Priceless (as in, there are some things money can’t buy…), and this year it is scheduled for next weekend: the 4th of July. however, there are some pretty serious wildfires raging in the canyon in which the event takes place, and so it’s quite possible our event might be cancelled. or moved, if we’re lucky enough to find another spot that can accomodate several hundred people and a lot of music and activity for a few days.

while that sucks (a LOT), what sucks more is that there are currently more than 1,000 wildfires burning in california. an extremely dry spring and hot weather (hello, global warming!) have created a dangerous fire season. in general, wildfires are perfectly natural and one of nature’s way of restoring balance to ecosystems, but that doesn’t account for human presence, and there are so many communities being torn apart right now. the little town where we hold our event only has about 10 residents, and they have not (yet) been evacuated, but i’m sure it’s stressful knowing that any minute they could be told to leave.

i hope not only for the sake of the party but for the sake of all the residents of plumas county that these fires are contained and that no more start. i also hope that all these floods, fires, and other natural disasters that seem to be increasing year by year get the people who still have their heads in their asses about climate change to pull them out and pull together with those willing to invest now to start preparing for the effects for global warming. while we should be still be doing whatever we can to slow it down, and honestly whether or not it is even a human-caused problem, the human reality is that we need to start preparing for the fact that climate change is already upon us – that means investing in levee protection (as residents of the mississippi river and its tributaries have learned), fire protection, preparing for food and water shortages (which are already happening worldwide), and buffering against extreme weather patterns.

politicians who still consider this an ideological issue and waste time combating science and blocking important legislation using childish, wasteful tactics deserve to all be removed from office. congresspersons and senators who continue to hold hands with coal and oil industries (among others) instead of finding ways to inspire their constituencies to take progressive action aren’t doing the victims of these natural disasters any favors. hopefully the residents living in states that have been hit hard will this take into account come election day in november, and vote for representatives who will DO something about climate change, not those who will continue to stall legislation, forecast theoretical negative economic effects as a result of converting to green energy (instead of all the positive economic possibilities), continue to support (and be supported by) polluting industries and technologies and complain about tax increases and funding for things that will save lives. like i said, even if climate change isn’t something we either caused or can stop, it’s something that’s measurably happening and we need leaders who will do something about it.