xmas celebration

we took it to another level this year. for some of us this was unprecedented. but we had fun with it. so happy birthday JC and praise thee the god of consumption. here's documentation on the celebrations:

xmas

liberation ecology

I just participated in a conversation with Van Jones about the Green for All campaign. Van shared with us some news that gave me shivers: like that all of Al Gore's worst case scenarios posed in An Inconvenient Truth are quite possibly our best case scenarios. That the city of Atlanta is 27 days away from being completely out of water. That we might not be talking about eco-apartheid in the near future, we might be talking eco-facism. Because the winners of today might just step up and say, you know what? There just isn't enough to go around, so we're getting rid of all the rest of these people.
He's talking about building a movement that is both left and green, one that works toward social justice while helping our environment. He says lets train all the poor kids to install solar panels; to caulk all the buildings that are leaking too much energy. He says, millions of homes, millions of buildings are going to need these things. That means millions of jobs for people who don't have them right now.

What's not to love about this scenario?
For me, its that it is a stop-gap solution. It doesn't address the inequities in our system - we could just have the same people winning, and the same people losing. It doesn't go far enough with addressing our ecological crisis. It maintains capitalism, consumerism. The system is broken and it needs real solutions.

I know he's thought all this through. And when he talks about building a movement, he's clear that this is only the beginning: that we need to start with things that we can win, that people can relate to. We pull in people from the right, we pull in the folks who are left but don't really think about the environment. And we don't hold back on taking down the Right with a capital R folks who just don't give a shit at all about the environment. And after we're through that, and we've begun to survive this climate crisis, we move on to Round 2... we make real change for the better --- meanwhile our people are employed and we slow climate change.

This is a nationwide movement toward a global solution. Growing food and justice for all is part of it. Food needs to be a part of it ... its not just about what we feed our bodies but how we feed our bodies, and how we relate to ourselves, each other, through the one tangible element that connects us all back to our ecology. Lots of thinking to do... and lots of work ahead.

Where do you fit in?

i'm just chillin enjoying my vacation surfing the web deliscious-ing like crazy and found this cool post:

Based on data collected and compiled within the Pew Internet and America Life Project, Rainie divided technology users into nine groups, with non-users being the tenth group:

1.
Omnivores (8 percent of the U.S. population): They enthusiastically use everything related to mobile communications technology.
2.
Connectors (7 percent): This group, trending toward older females, really uses the communication aspects of these technologies.
3.
Lackluster Veterans (8 percent): They use the Internet frequently, but are less avid about cell phones. (If self-placement is permitted, I think I would classify myself as a lackluster veteran.)
4.
Productivity Enhancers (8 percent of population): They have strongly positive views about how technology helps them increase their productivity at work and at home.
5.
Mobile Centrics (10 percent of the population): They fully embrace the functionality of their cell phones, but don't use the Internet much.
6.
Connected But Hassled (10 percent): They find all this connectivity intrusive and information something of a burden. They often experience information overload.
7.
Inexperienced Experimenters (8 percent): These casual users occasionally take advantage of interactivity.
8.
Light But Satisfied (15 percent): They have some technology, but it does not play a major role in their lives. They love TV and radio.
9.
Indifferents (11 percent): They proudly proclaim that they don't like this technology, but they begrudgingly use it a little.
10.
Off the Network (15 percent): They have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Older females dominate this group.


So, where do you fit in? i'm going with Lackluster Veterans.

take your tentacle to work day

the Community Clinics Initiative, where O works, is amazing. i went to a little bit of their grantee meeting as part of take-your-tentacle-to-work-day. not only did i witness the illustrious O-dawg give a great introduction to their new grant cycle (on environmental/community health, partnerships, collaborations, whoo hoo!!) that had me and the rest of the room pealing laughter, but i also heard some inspiring speakers.

like america bracho. wow. and of course sandra, from TALC. and the woman from PICO. and whoever that other guy was, too!!

they all got me thinking about what it takes to build strong partnerships and to develop collaborations, which was awesome because that's a lot of my work right now. O's new initiative/RFP really showed what an unique and valuable role clinics can play in our movement toward healthy communities, and as someone who focuses mostly on food justice, i'm hoping this can be an opportunity to work with clinics!!

i hope we all get to keep participating in take your tentacle to work day.. more on WORLD's summit later, that brought the whole octopus to one tentacle's work!!

Lena's birth day

Lena Dalke is hecka old now. Here are the tentacles celebration at the Easy Lounge. Hey Lena, do you wanna sya something?

Lena's birth day

Coming up!!!

There's been some serious lagging on updating the blog but a new regime is coming to effect. Tentacles
are committed to updating the blog every two weeks. So here are the few things you can expect to read about in the next month:
-conferences, summits and meetings attended
-thanksgiving at Alcatraz
-misc. celebrations and concerts
-olive picking
-take a tentacle to work day will be a regular feature as well

Also we are looking for an intern to work on the blog as an editor. Storage space/work area will be provided. More details are forthcoming.

world summit on women & hiv

'kay ~ i'm starting this post and i expect that other tentacles will contribute. one particular tentacle works at WORLD - women organized to respond to life threatening disease.
somehow, she manages to mobilize all the rest of us to come work on some of their big events, like cape-making for the aids walk and this summit that just happenned on november 30th.
its always such a rich experience at world, because there is so much heart and passion and gratitude in the women who make it all happen. at the summit, i had the opportunity to lead a workshop for affected communiy members - friends and family of women living with hiv. there is so much learning and so much strength to be drawn from each other, and so much of it is just about telling stories.
i also volunteer-dominatrixed at the summit, and i have so much gratitude and respect for all of the might people who showed up to make it happen! we pulled it off without any real hitch - or glitch- or whatever you call it. way to be on your game, volunteers. the day was inspiring for me and i hear for many other volunteers...
other tentacle thoughts?