Do Protest Marches Do Any Good?

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Tuesday March 23, 2004 · 2:38 PM PST

2004/03/23 · 14:38

I read an opinion piece last week that started with the following paragraph:

Yet again tens of thousands prepare to descend on major metropolitan areas to march in circles through empty streets. We will exercise our legs and our lungs and our egos and then go home again. Nothing will change and nobody will be surprised at that. As usual, exorbitant expenditures of time and money will add up to exactly zero. Meanwhile, people and animals and ecosystems in Iraq and elsewhere will continue to pay the price for our failures of courage and imagination.

This caught my attention because I burned out long ago on marching in the streets, trying to come up with clever chants, trying to get people to be loud, getting too cold or too hot, and wondering, at the end of the day, if anyone cared that hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people had been marching. The media certainly didn't. I began to feel like going to protests was required to retain my lefty credentials, but I wasn't sure if it was the most effective use of my time. Am I just lazy? Getting old? Burned out? Maybe. Or maybe not.
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Poetry Monday

veracious

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Monday March 22, 2004 · 4:50 PM PST

2004/03/22 · 16:50

Today is a good day for poetry, apparently.

A lest anyone think that poetry is not political, I've chosen a poem with an anti-sprawl theme. But first, a few links: Read More

Another day, another rant

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Wednesday March 17, 2004 · 5:48 PM PST

2004/03/17 · 17:48

Bush Administration: "Science? We don't need no steenkin' science!"

This article ran in the LA Times yesterday. The lede says it all:

Political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency bypassed agency professional staff and a federal advisory panel last year to craft a rule on mercury emissions preferred by the industry and the White House, several longtime EPA officials say.
The EPA staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. At the same time, the proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants was written using key language provided by utility lobbyists.

veracious

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Tuesday March 16, 2004 · 8:40 PM PST

2004/03/16 · 20:40

This is Not a Women's Issue

This article set me off on a rant today.

Please note polite and appropriate use of the Extended Copy box - hint, hint Read More

Poetry Monday

veracious

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Monday March 15, 2004 · 12:20 PM PST

2004/03/15 · 12:20

Because man cannot live by bread alone.
Neither can woman. Read More

Wherefore art thou, Science Friday?

veracious

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Friday March 12, 2004 · 9:07 PM PST

2004/03/12 · 21:07

I think I'm going through withdrawal.

In case you are too, here are a few tidbits. They come from the "why we should care about conservation" file.
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Women in the Blogosphere

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Tuesday March 09, 2004 · 11:28 PM PST

2004/03/09 · 23:28

As is perhaps inevitable, International Women's day has sparked another round of token "women's issue" stories. We've mostly been treated to musings about women's rights (or lack thereof) in Iraq and Afganistan (here and here) this year. Athena had a great comment on this:

I am looking for more discussion on how we speak with precision when the genders do not have the same experience of reality. How much taxpayer money is collected from American women in order to liberate the males in Iraq? And how many American women soldiers are assaulted by other troops while they are "liberating"? And how many American women students are assaulted at the military academies............etc.

And then there's the "women participating" theme: Why aren't there more women in politics/business/science/name your favorite field here? NYCO raises the question of women's political involvement, and how the Dean campaign may have affected that. But again, this question seems to come up about once a year, and then disappear again.
I'd like to see consideration of these issues 365, not just on IWD. And yes, before you yell at me, I know about all the great organizations working on these issues. I'd just like to see them hit the front page more often. But before this turns into yet another "the media is stupid" rant, let me get to what I really want to talk about: The Blogosphere.
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Poetry Monday

veracious

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Monday March 08, 2004 · 12:15 PM PST

2004/03/08 · 12:15

Well, I tried. I really did try to follow Theoria's advice. But I was only partially successful. First, there are no real mountains in Wisconsin, only (as a Kossack pointed out) mountains so old that they have retired and become hills. Also, cabins in the mountains don't come cheaply or quickly. I'm not going to comment on the second piece of advice, except to say that it's a nice idea. I was successful at #3, thanks to some good friends. And I did manage to unplug all weekend, and even read some poetry, so here you go: Read More

Poetry Monday

veracious

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Monday March 01, 2004 · 12:08 PM PST

2004/03/01 · 12:08

For everyone who didn't want to get up this morning:

In Praise of My Bed

At last I can be with you! Read More

Dear Stephanie,

veracious

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Thursday February 26, 2004 · 6:28 PM PST

2004/02/26 · 18:28

Here's what I wrote:

February 26, 2004

Dear Ms. Herseth,

Several days ago, I sent you a campaign contribution. Your campaign was brought to my attention by the Daily Kos blog, and I decided to support you because I feel strongly about winning back the house for the Democrats. I looked at your website, read what little information you have posted about your positions, decided I liked the fact that you're reaching out to the netroots, and sent you $25.01.

veracious

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Monday February 23, 2004 · 8:39 PM PST

2004/02/23 · 20:39

to remind us that there is life beyond political analysis.

Waiting for the Fire

Not just the temples, lifting
lotuses out of the tangled trees,
not the moon on cool canals,
the profound smell of the paddies,
evening fires in open doorways,
fish and rice the perfect end of wisdom;
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Republicans in the family

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Friday January 30, 2004 · 9:22 PM PST

2004/01/30 · 21:22

You know that feeling when you run smack dab into another worldview? Kind of a "Huh? How can you think like that?" feeling. Like you have to turn your brain around to understand where the person is coming from. I've been thinking about that lately, prompted by a few things, including the whole strict father/nurturing parent paradigm of politics , the buzz about bringing disaffected voters back to the polls (and the Democratic Party), and the Wellstone Civic Dialogue Project. The questions in my mind are along the lines of "how can we as a society talk to each other more?" and "how do we keep political discussions civil?" But most importantly, I wonder about that colliding worldviews problem. When you talk to someone who disagrees with you on such a fundamental level, where do you start? Read More

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