Big Star (Not at Fillmore) singing "Why don't you come back from way out west..."

Good question.

The Fillmore on Geary Street in San Francisco is known for its psychodelic posters and its intimate rock shows. On October 20th Alex Chilton's Big Star played to a civilized crowd.

We sat in the balcony and I enjoyed the show, as it brought back fond memories for me of the Metro in Chicago and all of the wonderful rock and power pop I imbibed. Mr. D used makeshift earplugs and plastered on his most tolerant face.

Last week at the East Bay Waldorf School was very exciting,(and exhausting). I followed around the Handwork teacher and assisted in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades. It was extremely hard not being the "I" in the class and I am glad for the experience. Although I hope my after class comments to the handwork teacher aren't offensive. As a class teacher one forms a pretty clear boundary line, while subject classes need to be a little less disciplined. It is also very hard conducting a "traveling show" instead of having the classes come to the teacher. Handwork is especially hard to carry around.



Last night while we ate quesadillas on the back porch there was a dear little hummingbird keeping us company. I tried to catch her in flight but only caught part of her.


Yesterday I finished a dreadfully written fantasy story, INKHEART. I do not recommend it even if it is being made into a major motion picture. The characters are poorly written and the descriptive passages are weak and repetitive.

Example:

Meggie sees her mother after 9 years and stares
(end of page 444) "as if nothing else in the world existed".


Meggie's father finds a photo of his wife and realizes she is alive and it seemed
(page 491)"as if nothing else in the world existed".

The use of quotes at the beginning of each chapter from classic books like Huck Finn or the Tolkien trilogy does not make this book more credible. It makes it more desperate for credibility.

Why did I read the entire book if I disliked it so? Because I have a plot driven nature and needed to see it through to the end.

It is Monday and I am off to the East Bay Waldorf School to help the handwork teacher make lanterns with the school. The Lantern walk is coming up soon and I am ever so curious to see what kind of lanterns we will be making. Something like this?

I have forgotten how to use the windshield wiper. It has not rained for 4 months, (since we moved) and when it finally started raining this week I was like a new driver. This lever does what?



I also have forgotten how to knit, (see the beginning of my first sock here)and was reminded this morning at The East Bay Waldorf School where I will be volunteering as an assistant to the handwork teacher (who is married to Spencer Hatch). I am glad to be back with "my people".

On Tuesday we were fingerprinted and now we are waiting for our approval and I-600A orphan petition document from California's immigration office.

My Vashon Island friend just informed me that someone received a fine for boating dangerously close to 2 Orcas off the coast of San Juan island. This is good news for Orca friends because this kind of behavior happens daily and goes unpunished. An earlier blog of mine stated that Orcas are negatively affected by the multitudes of boaters in their habitat and that they can't hear each other over the din of the boats. See article for more details.

Last Night Bad guy dropped by...

Like MAGIC the morning glory blossom appeared this morning. I hope she has many brothers and sisters as I have been checking every morning for a month to see if they would flower.

Another weekend full of sunshine, marital conflict, and music.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is a weekend festival for which you will want to arrive early. We showed up at noon when the event was in full swing and could not find a seat anywhere near the (star)stage in which Los Lobos was playing. We sat next to a couple of New Englanders, one a montessori teacher and behind a couple with lots of friends/family with young kids. The music was excellent; John Prine, Keller Williams, Bela Fleck and my favorite Los Lobos. Lots of cowboy hats and characters including a blue fairy. There was even a dog that looked like my Ima.

I am feeling a little misty right now having finished the 6th HPotter so if anyone wants to call and console me I am here.

We received our (hopefully) last fingerprinting appointment with California's immigration department for our orphan petition (I-600A) next week. After we are fingerprinted and approved we will be taken off hold and ready to roll.

This weekend is the FREE Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass concert in San Francisco.
Click on the schedule to see evidence of the awesome lineup. The picture here is of Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings from another year at this same festival.

We have figs.
In our yard.
And they are strange.
They don't taste like the figs you buy at the store.
They are sweet.
Too sweet?
The birds don't think so.
I picked some
and stuffed them with blue/cream cheese.
And topped them with pecans.
Sounds good huh?
Fresh from the great out of doors,
straight to our table
and directly to the garbage bin.

ew.

Well, I have been obsessing again. This time about an outfit (shown left)I have been sewing. Sewing yes. I am not really an abstract-minded person so sewing tends to be a real challenge. I can't really "see" things spacially so these projects are good for me as they make me feel like I am a true idiot. The pattern for the pants was extremely simple. However that may be I still needed to rip out every step of the pattern and redo. The dress was more complicated and the collar was a complete disaster. Using unused fabric I fashioned a cover up collar to hide the construction site. I also had to redesign the sleeves because they made me look like I was sprouting little wings. I may be a complete git but damn I can make do with utter cr*p. This must be my mechanical side. I imagine myself as an astronaut in space with duct tape having the time of my life.

Also had to read HPotter book 4 and 5. This took a few days.

Because you need to know I haven't lost my sense of humor I give you this story brought to me by my favorite wise-acre mom Mimi Smartypants.

Ok so now I have got the you tube thing down I can post some short films. A lot of debate has come out of the Jena 6 story and the bloggers that most speak my mine are What About our Daughters and Sandra Rose, both of whom have been given grief and harassed by some of their male African American colleagues (bloggers).

Here is another good one for the sisters.

Dunbar Village
Please watch. And tune into whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com
for the latest on what the media and our leaders don't want to discuss.

I have been reading a lot of news and editorials regarding what is happening between our brothers and sisters in the name of racial inequities and I have been alerted to my own lack of awareness on many of the issues, (Jena 6, Genarlow Wilson, Dunbar Village). Help these boys lord please!

Some people are saying it is a matter of educating the African American youth and helping to fund higher security for housing projects.

Some are saying that it is a case of African American Man against African American Woman or AAWoman against AAMan, (Gina McCauley writes about this extensively in her blog : whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com)

Some say that we as a nation are still enslaving people, (see the US judicial system and the media ON THAT ONE).

I say it is an ecomomic i.e. material war that is underlying ALL the battles in our country. The mainstream focus in our country has been on the value of material wealth and the system that continues the oppression of those that do not have economic wealth. Our acceptance of the capitalistic one-party system has led us down this road to a no party system, where you vote for those that take bribes from corporations or your candidate loses.

Materialistic thinking has spread to the (supposed) spiritual communities as well. When a minister needs millions of dollars to guide his devotees we need to ask questions. But how could we as human beings be aware of God's plan? and further What is the effectiveness in supporting the notion of "A chosen People"?

As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living has stated, the solution lies with this:

Socialize business (Companies empowering communities)
Spiritualize government (Leaders with an ethical foundation in humanity)
and
Secularize Religion (No Religion dominates over any other)

"When attention is given to the spiritual aspect of one's life it
brings
responsibility, a sense of belonging, and compassion and caring for the
whole of humanity. Spirit upholds and sustains life. It makes you
strong
and solid. It breaks down the narrow boundaries of cast, creed,
religion,
and nationality, and gives you an awareness of life present everywhere.
It
is only through this awareness, this uplifting of consciousness, that
wars
can be eliminated and human rights restored in the world today."
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

They Cut Down the Tree on the Jena High School Campus

An estimated 20,000 people will head to Jena, Louisiana, this week to protest for the
JENA 6. Below is one report from The Nation.

The rally in Jena, Louisiana is planned for September 20, the date on which Mychal Bell had been scheduled to be sentenced for attempted second-degree battery. The 17-year-old high school football star, who a year ago was being eyed as a top prospect for Division I scholarships, has been in jail since December for answering a classmate's racial taunts with a punch in the face. But on Friday, pre-empting a public outcry against the impending sentence of up to fifteen years, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals responded to an emergency writ filed by Bell's counsel and vacated his conviction.

The rally is going ahead as planned, but it's not immediately clear how its message has changed to reflect the court's ruling. Although the occasion will now be a sort of victory rally, the case is far from resolved. Bell remains in jail, and the prosecutor, District Attorney Reed Walters, has stated his intention to press on with an endgame of appeals. Plus, the other five black students who were involved in the fight--Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Jesse Beard--are still awaiting trial on similar charges. None of their cases will be directly affected by Friday's ruling, which addressed the jurisdictional problem of trying Bell, a juvenile at the time of the fight, as an adult. (Beard is being prosecuted as a juvenile; the other four of the so-called Jena Six were 17, the age of majority in Louisiana.)

"This is a moment to show that people are in it for the long haul," says James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change. One of the first activists to enter the fray, Rucker is coordinating bus trips to Jena--a rural town of 3,000 mostly white residents--and encouraging members who can't make it to organize locally. His web-savvy organization has collected more than $130,000 for the Jena Six Defense Fund and more than 212,000 signatures for a petition demanding that Walters drop all charges and asking Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to intervene. "If this kind of pressure weren't there," he says, "the process would be going much slower, and it would be more of a crapshoot as far as the results are concerned."

Louisiana NAACP president Ernest Johnson, who is helping to organize Thursday's march in conjunction with a coalition of civil rights groups--including Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, Al Sharpton's National Action Network and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference--says he has received more calls since Friday's ruling than in the days leading up to it. As news about the case spreads, he explains, the scope of the campaign is broadening. "I think people are coming to show strength and unity against these types of injustices," he says. "They're coming to send a message to other Jenas throughout the country. To the Jena in New York
, the Jena in Washington, in California--there are a lot of Jenas out there."

Rich with symbolism and iconic images, the case of the Jena Six certainly makes for a compelling parable of racial injustice in America. And as more and more people identify with the story, its meaning becomes more and more personal. Given the number of Americans who feel they have a stake in this case, it's no wonder that presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have issued statements expressing their concern.

The story, rehearsed by now in newspapers around the globe, begins at an assembly last fall, when a black freshman asked if he was allowed to sit under a large tree on school grounds that he had heard was "whites-only." He was given permission, but the next day three nooses were found swinging from its branches. The principal tracked down the offenders, three boys from the rodeo team, and recommended expulsion. But superintendent Roy Breithaupt opted for a three-day in-school suspension. "Adolescents play pranks," he told the Chicago Tribune. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."

Racial tensions continued to escalate throughout the fall. A group of black students organized a sit-in under the tree to protest the white students' light punishment. Fights broke out in school and at parties; a white man waved his gun in a confrontation with black students at a convenience store; and on November 30 one of the school buildings was suspiciously set ablaze. Then, on December 4, Bell slugged Justin Barker, a white student who had been taunting him with racial slurs and defending the noose-hangers, and the other members of the Jena Six joined in. During the skirmish, Barker smacked his head on the pavement and suffered a concussion. He was treated at the local hospital and released a few hours later, and was in good enough shape to head out and socialize that evening.

District Attorney Walters, who had earlier that fall threatened black students at school that he could "take away your lives with a stroke of my pen," pushed for maximum charges. The Jena Six were expelled, arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy--their shoes were described as potentially lethal weapons. Bell, the first to face trial, saw his murder charges reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. No attempt was made by his public defender to contest the racial makeup of the jury pool, nor did he call any witnesses during the trial. Bell was convicted by an all-white jury in June.

"There are several issues in this case," says Bob Noel, one of five attorneys who signed on as Bell's new counsel after the trial. "One of the biggest is disproportionate treatment. People may think of a similarly situated kid, maybe middle-class, maybe white, and they think, Oh, let's give him another chance. When he's poor and black, it's not necessarily the case. Another is funding for indigent defense: If there's no money to adequately pay lawyers, to have support staff for them and resources they can use, they're always at a major disadvantage. And the other is the issue of race in America."

Throughout the summer, as the media glare intensified and a muscular team of attorneys assembled on the side of the defendants, Judge J.P. Mauffray and Walters dug in their heels. James Rucker, who sat in on some of Bell's motion hearings during the appeal, was shocked to see the LaSalle Parish brand of justice at work. "You'd watch this judge grill the defense attorney. It felt like he was trying to trick him," Rucker says. "And then he would set up the DA, so that all he had to do was say yes to a question. It was like they were a team."

In the first two weeks of September, however, Mauffray began to show some signs of concession; he threw out the conspiracy charge against Bell and reduced the charges against Shaw, Jones and Bailey to attempted second-degree battery. But he held firm on Bell's conviction until last Friday, when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him. How Mauffray and Walters will adjudicate the remaining cases in light of last week's decision, and the intense scrutiny that this week's protests will bring, remains to be seen. Many voices, most prominently Al Sharpton, are calling for an investigation of prosecutorial misconduct.

Yesterday was a lazy blogsurfing day. I discovered some amazing sites. One was an extremely thought-provoking satiric site that just made me happy due to the dialogue, (a lot of it angry)to which it was opened. Everyone seems to react to it differently and that is the magic of it!

BLACK PEOPLE LOVE US

Hi folks! Ready for another review? Well this one really took something out of me because this book was pretty intense for someone about to adopt transracially, or is it triracially? I am getting so confused. I used to read these kinds of books in my twenties and got a lot of fire from their heat. I am older now and have a more mellow perspective on the world.

I like that this book “Outsiders Within” is available and has received some good press. But I think that there are some moments when the book doesn't really serve those for whom it speaks. It is ok that bell hooks (quoted in Chapter 10 Shopping for Children in the International Marketplace ) tells us “white people” that we are adopting internationally because we are looking to spice up our bland sterile lives. She has every right to her opinion but what she does when she makes this kind of statement is judge in the same way that people who are marginalized are judged, that is, without a thought to them as multi-layered human beings doing the best they can.

I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to go through the agony of international adoption and the demands of multiculturalism because they had a craving for something “exotic”.Perhaps there are people like this who want “trophy” children but I have never met them. As a woman of European American heritage married to a Gujurati Indian, I have a lot of “flavor” in my life already. Our reasons for adopting from Ethiopia are very personal and complex. We are and will always be happy to share our feelings about it with family and friends when they ask. But some of the statements made by the authors in this book indict parents when it is faulty governmental policies and a lack of research that needs to be held accountable.

Why is it so hard to adopt?
Why is reproductive therapy so anti-woman?
Who is making money from the sorrows of the impoverished mother and the woman who cannot be a mother?
Why do some still cling to the idea that all "white" (I really hate this term) people want to harm people of color?
How can someone born into priviledge help to change the system without joining with those that are born into poverty?

This book doesn't answer these questions exactly but it does something more important. Over and over again it states something obvious and crucial. Children who are transracially adopted need to be “seen” in ways that biologically born children do not. In the book “Black baby white hands- A view from the Crib” Jaiya John tells us how he and his brother, the first African American children adopted into a “white” family in New Mexico, were not SEEN. The colorblindness of their (loving but ill informed)family and friends made the subject of their race taboo and created a crisis within them as to their identity.

This is something that was not made clear to those adopting internationally/transracially by the agencies representing them in the years the authors of these books were raised. Things have improved, that is, thanks to books like these, research and the lessons learned by adopting families. Their tales are stones that lead us out of the woods and help us to "See" our children and our children to see themselves in others.

I have a response to bell hooks for her statements regarding my ilk.

When did we start shopping for a child?
I guess this was after we decided against cloning ourselves at the Reproductive laboratory.

Why did we decide to adopt transracially?
Well, it all began when the Hindu male proposed to me and I thought to myself, “How exotic! What a great opportunity to experience domestic servitude like in India here in my own home!”
I accepted of course, and then after the test tube baby debacle we decided it would be best to adopt domestically. But I began to have strange visions of our white son saying something to my husband like, “Listen Darky, shine my cricket shoes or else!” in a British accent no less.

Why Ethiopia?
We've always watched the Boston Marathon. Religiously! And frankly, we want a winner.

That boy sure knows how to stroll!

Last Sunday we walked to the Solano Stroll, a street fair in Albany that has been ongoing for many years. It kicked Oakland's street fair, Art and Soul, into last weeks scrambled eggs and was FREE. The crowd was more diverse, and well everything was more diverse. Yes, there were more rich people there but money makes the world go around and as long as everyone comes we should be glad.

I was glad to be there with Mr. D and he got his falafel and baklavah so he was happy too. Every few blocks there were bands like the one in the video.

I am told East bay Californians like to schedule their fairs for early fall because the weather is warm and sunny. Last Sunday was certainly that.