Blueberries as Big as the End of Your Thumb!organic blueberry picking and pick your own farms near Houston

Scroll down for a list of organic pick-your-own farms of all ilks near enough Houston, and a link to find farms in other areas of the country as well!

Last weekend the family went to Chmielewski's Blueberry Farm, to self pick blueberries. We'd visited a pumkin patch in Virginia with our family last fall, but never got around to buying one of the pre-picked pumkins because we exhausted ourselves on the excellent rides they offered, including giant slides made of pipes, a pig-pen converted to a sandbox kind of thing, except it was filled with corn kernals, a giant inflated pumkin to jump on, several different kinds of mazes, a petting zoo, and I'm sure I'm missing something else. And we probably all thought it was a little lame we weren't allowed to pick our own pumpkins (I was really excited beforehand because I really wanted to whack the pumkin from the vine!).

Well, Chmielewski's Blueberry Farm can't be accused of having too many distractions aside from blueberries. They're serious about picking your own.

Somebody told me that this year, because of the rising costs of transporting foods and hiring laborers, more and more small farms are implementing pick your own programs -- though I can't find any articles on Google to back that claim. But when I was researching the list of places to pick around Houston, I found lots of other organic edibles waiting for the picking: blackberries, dewberries, veggies of all sorts, apples, pumkins (in fall). Pretty much there's something to pick around Houston from early May till late September. Farm germs are supposed to be good for babies' immune systems, and it's such a relief to explore the countrysides around Houston, that I think I'll try to get us out picking at least a few times this summer.

For the blueberry trip we left our house at 6:30 in the morning, got to the farm by 7:30 to beat the June heat, and lost ourselves among many an amateur picker, and plenty of more serious self-pickers in the maze of berries. It was a lovely two hours we spent picking, eating, and calling out through the berries to our friends Jbrd and Nicole and their families.

We started with this empty bucket:


We showed Grasshopper how to pick berries without squishing them, and she caught on quickly.


Her two and a half year old self expertly avoided most of the red or green berries, and just picked the blue ones. The concept of finding blueberries on bushes, and not in plastic containers didn't seem wow her, and I was glad, hoping our little garden has taught her to assume that if there's a little fruit or veggie, it came from the earth.


She started picking.


And eating.


And plucking.


And eating.


Picking.


Eating.


And Greendaddy and I plucked...though we sought berries atop the bushes so kids could get the lower ones.


We ate berries too,


but not as many as Grasshopper.


They made her wacky.


And silly.


She didn't even want to pose for a picture if it meant she couldnt' have a mouthful of the giant sweet berrries.


So we hoisted her high away from the bucket to get one family shot.


Then it was time to go.


We snipped her blueberry patch umbilical cord, rushed her to the car, but it was very awkward fitting her into the carseat.


Once home, I gave away some berries, we saved some for immediate eating, and I froze the rest, which was very easy: to freeze berries, or any fruit, them out on a couple cookie sheets in one layer (I mean, I didn't pile berries on top of each other), and freeze them overnight. Then I put them in ziplock bags. They taste NOTHING like store bought frozen berries...they retain shape and taste. Yum yum yum yum yum.

******
Want to pick Blueberries or other growy sundries in the Houston metro area? Here's the mostly organic list I culled from the Pick Your Own website...and if you're not a Houstonian you can use that same site to find places to pluck in near wherever you are:

Chmielewski's Blueberry Farm
23810 Bauer Hockley Road, Hockley, TX 77447. Phone: 281-304-0554.
37.5 mi – about 40 mins north from Houston on 290, up to 1 hour 20 mins in traffic
Open: Wednesday and Friday 7;30 AM to 1:00 PM and Saturday and Sunday 7:30 AM to 2:00 PM; other times by appointment. Follows organic methods but not yet certified, blueberries, gift shop, restrooms, picnic area. Payment: Cash, Check.
37.5 mi – about 40 mins north on 290 up to 1 hour 20 mins in traffic

Moorehead's Blueberry Farm –
19531 Moorhead Road, Conroe, TX. Phone: 281-572-1265. 888.702.0622 (Toll Free)
40.5 mi from Houston – about 43 mins North on 1-45 up to 1 hour 10 mins in traffic
Twenty varieties of blueberries (primarily Tifblue, Premier, Brightwell, Climax, Garden Blue, Becky Blue, Alice Blue and Sharp Blue) on 20 acres. No pesticides are used. No entrance fee; you are charged only for what you pick. Sampling is not deterred. Buckets are provided, as well as picnic tables, rest room facilities. Soft drinks and water are available for purchase.

S & L Farms - pumpkins, summer squash, Other fruit or veg,
4606 Cr 186, Anderson, TX 77830. Phone: 830- 832-9755.
Crops are usually available in September, October, November. Open: We are open 7 days a week if no bad weather; if the gate is open come on in. We follow organic methods, but are not yet certified. Payment: Cash, only.
80.9 mi – about 1 hour 24 mins down 290/then 6 up to 2 hours 10 mins in traffic

Bauer Farms Berries
- blackberries, dewberries, Follows organic methods
17702 Mueschke Road, Cypress, TX 77429. Phone: 281-563-9669.
64.2 mi – about 1 hour 9 mins up to 1 hour 30 mins in traffic 1-10 and farm roads
Crops are usually available in April, May, June. Open: Monday to Friday 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm; Sat and Sunday from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Dewberries - Mid April to Mid May Blackberries - Mid May - Mid June. We follow organic methods, but are not yet certified. Payment: Cash, only.

Home Sweet Farm –
7800 FM 2502, Brenham, TX 77833. Phone: 979.251.9922.
1 hour down 290 JUNE 22 TOMATO FESTIVAL LET US GO!!!!
ORGANIC, beans, eggplant, flowers, melons, peppers, pumpkins, summer squash, winter squash, tomatoes, other vegetables, OTHER fruit or veg, pumpkin patch-pick in the field, child-sized haybale maze, and prepicked produce, snacks and refreshment stand, picnic area
Crops are usually available in June, July, August, September, October, November. We follow organic methods, but are not yet certified. Payment: Cash, only.

Ross's Blueberries - blueberries, blueberry2262@sbcglobal.net
1453 County Road 2270, Cleveland, TX 77327. Phone: 2816227725.
45 min down 59
Crops are usually available in June, July. Open: Call ahead. It is our home farm and very casual. You just come and pick. It is not commercial. Weekends are probably best but weekdays are possible. Just call ahead. Also, mornings or evenings are better because of the Texas heat! $5.00 a gallon. We use buckets bought at a feed store. Eat while you pick too! They start coming in during June. They go thru middle of July. We have 5 kinds and the best are in June. We follow organic methods, but are not yet certified. Payment: Cash, only. We are not certified organic. We do not spray our berries. We use Miracle Gro to fertilize. You may want to bring bug spray.

Griffin Berry Farm
Hour and a half down i10
2394 Moore Road, Beaumont, TX 77713. Phone: 409-753-2247. Email:
- apples, blueberries, grapes, pears, peaches, plums, Other fruit or veg, restrooms, picnic area. Crops are usually available in May, June, July, October, November. Open: Check Web Page. We follow organic methods, but are not yet certified. Payment: Cash, Check. (ADDED: May 30, 2008)

Wildlife Menace

If you are distracted today, do as I did, and vote in George W. Bush as the Houston area's greatest wildlife menace.

The choices the editors give are:
Raspberry ants, Flying Cockroaches, Alligators, Wild Hogs and Nutria

But I think we all know whose the worst menace in these parts. Take twenty impish seconds and write his name in by Tuesday. For the fun of it.

http://www.chron.com/entertainment/ultimate/

I wrote in George W. Bush, to be exact.

The Hope Speech

When I was in high school in Lexington, Kentucky, my mom would look for competitions for me. Anything that had to do with science, essay writing, or speech making. She believed I could win anything the way only a mom could believe. It turned out I could win a lot of the time. I had pretty good smarts. My parents gave me more encouragement, financial support, and guidance than any other parents I knew of. While most kids from my school worked behind grocery store counters after class, I was at a table with a calculus tutor or pipetting DNA samples into a PCR machine at a laboratory or reading Tolstoy. The other reason I won so much was that sometimes only one or two other students showed up to the competition. You start to recognize the five other kids in the state with parents like yours. If you show up enough, you’re going to win something. A certificate, a plaque, a trophy, two hundred dollars, a trip to Pittsburgh.

With this one extemporaneous speech competition, it seemed like there was nothing to lose but a couple of hours of our time. No preparation needed, it’s off the top of your head. My mom and I drove to the location – an American Legion Post not far from our house. I hadn’t really thought much about it beforehand. I spent my whole life in the South. I was almost always the only Indian in the room. Almost always the only person of color wherever I went. So even when I walked into the hall and saw that it was full of old white men, I didn’t blink. Only one other student – a white male – showed up to the competition. Like I said, if you go to enough of these things, your odds are pretty good. I was ready. Ready to extemporize.

The hall really filled up with veterans. We’re talking World War II GIs. The greatest generation. Children of the Great Depression, victors over the Nazis. A man gave me and the other student a piece of paper with the topic spelled out. It said – the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. My first reaction was relief that I knew all the amendments to the constitution. And the thirteenth amendment – that’s a really important one, the first of the three post-Civil War amendments to free American slaves. I was thinking, at least I have a grasp of what the topic is. But after that second of relief, I really felt my brown skin sticking to my skinny body. What was I to say about slavery to old white men in Lexington, Kentucky, a city that sided with the Confederates, a city that was Jim Crow when these men were kids?

There was a coin toss. Or maybe it was by alphabetical order. The other student had to speak first. I was sent off to a back room so I would not be able to hear and have an advantage by being able to respond. Even so, I could hear little bits of what the other student said. He clearly did not know what the thirteenth amendment was. He never mentioned slavery. Never mentioned the Civil War. He was just ranting about Bill Clinton. He said Clinton was a Nazi.

When they called me out, I stood silently for a few seconds and looked at the audience. The stony-faced aged warriors staring back at me! Then I gave the speech of my life. I will never be that good again. I said, the United States has a stain on its history. I said, slavery was a travesty of justice. I said, inequality and oppression were enshrined in the founding document of our nation. That we should feel shame that the founding fathers, who spoke out against tyranny and created the great institutions of democracy that we still benefit from, failed to stop slavery. That they agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a human being. That the injustices slaves faced were of the very worst kind. So bad that we might ask if it is possible to rise above that past.

With a few minutes left in the allotted time, I shifted tack and said that the thirteenth amendment was perhaps the most important of all the amendments. The greatness of our constitution, I said, and the greatness of our country is the capacity to change. Even though that amendment alone was not the end of discrimination and inequality, I said we should celebrate the incredible sacrifice that went into changing the law of the land and abolishing slavery. The very ability of this country to rise out of its slave-holding past, I said, was proof that we could rise above any challenge. That was what I said. I didn’t realize how much hope I had until I spoke about it to those old white men.

The MC who had run the competition said we should wait for the results. There were three judges at a table and they needed to confer. Well, we waited. And waited. More than thirty minutes passed. Finally, the MC announced that the other student won. My face got hot. I wanted to go home, but my mom – I think it was her not me – wanted to find out what happened. So she kept asking the MC questions until he gave us the actual results from the three judges. It turned out the competition was designed for a multitude of contestants, not just two. Each judge gave a score out of 100 for each speech. Two of the judges gave me the higher score. The third judge gave me a zero and the other student a 100. When they added the scores up, the other student came out on top.

I went home thinking about the irony of the whole damn thing. I was asked to speak about the end of slavery and what I got in return was mathematical proof for the continued existence of hate and discrimination. My mom and I talked about appealing. We could write letters to the national headquarters of the American Legion, but we gave that idea up.

This whole memory was buried away for years. A blip in my comfortable life. With the Obama campaign, it started to resurface. I heard that belief in hope expressed with stunning eloquence in his Iowa victory speech. And again when he conceded the New Hampshire defeat. MaGreen and I saw Obama with 20,000 other people in an arena when he came to Houston. And I thought, the country has changed. It is ready for the Hope Speech. Ready for a consensus about the grave injustices of our past and ready for the possibilities that come of reconciliation. But when the Wright videos surfaced and the TV people heaped scorn on Obama, I remembered the American Legion experience the way it happened. That judge, the one judge.

The consolation I speak to myself is that if the winner of that extemporaneous speech competition had been chosen by an up-or-down vote, I would have won. Won, you hear. As in the bigots would have gone home crying. I say to myself, the not-so-great of the greatest generation are almost all dead along with the great ones. I hear Will.I.Am singing in my head, singing yes we can.

How to Get Free Healthcare For You or Somebody You Care About

A friend of mine recently accompanied a neighbor who does not have any savings or any health insurance to the emergency room. Before they went, MaGreen and I researched and talked to friends about what there options were. I have recorded what I learned in the post below. Some might use these tactics to help friends, family, co-workers, or your own paid help (maid, nanny, etc.). You might need this information for yourself, but I have written it as if a person were helping a friend in the City of Houston. The same basic rules apply across the United States for everybody including Spanish speakers and those without immigration papers. (If you live in Sweden, Canada, or the UK, just smile smugly for having guaranteed healthcare and move on to the next post.) Please note that I am not advising and advocating anything, I'm just describing what I learned.

Non-Urgent Care
If your friend’s illness is not extreme, visit a walk-in clinic. These clinics go by many names and are run by many organizations throughout the area. All residents of Harris County can call Ask-A-Nurse at 713 633 2255. They have bilingual registered nurses who can help you and your friend figure out the best option for care. Also for those who live in Harris County, there is a free healthcare program known as the Gold Card. Your friend does not need papers to qualify, but proof of living in Harris County is required. Visit this link for more information. With this card, your friend can visit doctors at the public hospitals and clinics for free or a very low fee.

Urgent Care
If your friend has an urgent need for care – a broken leg, extreme stomach pain, an open wound – you should go to a hospital Emergency Room. The ER must accept her as a patient by law. Period. She should be prepared to wait 24 hours in the waiting room. (If you go, cancel all your appointments.) Only the most extreme cases are seen immediately. Here are the steps you should follow.

1) Choosing a hospital
Ben Taub Hospital is the public hospital. The nurses and doctors are accustomed to uninsured patients, but the wait is long because of overcrowding. Private hospitals such as St. Luke’s hospital have shorter waits, but if your friend does not speak English well she ought to take someone who does with her.

2) Giving a Different Name, Phone Number, and Address
Before she goes to the hospital, the friend might think of a different name, phone number, and address that are easy to remember. Jane Thompson instead of Jane Williams. She might change the last digit of the phone number. The friend would agree on the plan. When she enters the ER, she would explain her need at the big desk at the front. They will ask for her name. She would give them the one decided on earlier. Then she will have to wait. If there is a big crash on the highway after she arrives, the wait might suddenly double. At some point, they will call her up and ask for her information. She would give the made up name, number, and address. When they ask for ID, she would just say she does not have any. They might ask two or three times for different forms of ID, but they will quickly give up.

3) Ask for Translation
If your friend does not speak English well, she should still have the benefit of understanding what the doctor says. Ask for a translator if you are with her. Diagnosis is a subtle art. And your friend must understand the doctor’s instructions. Hospitals usually have a list of people who can help with various languages, even ones you might not expect like Hmong.

4) Discharge
The ER might be your friend’s one chance to receive expensive tests like blood analysis and CAT scans. Ask for a copy of the medical record so your friend can show it to the next doctor she visits. If your friend needs a prescription drug and you feel that you can trust your doctor, the doctor might be asked to write it out using your friend’s real name. When you leave, the hospital might ask for contact information again or try to set up a payment plan. Your friend would keep giving the new name she chose. If you are with her and they ask for your name, being prepared to make up a new name for yourself too might be necessary. Your friend may leave the hospital without being bothered at all.

5) Follow-up
The most challenging step will probably be following up on the care your friend received in the ER. Again, the Gold Card might be the best option. Or maybe you have doctor friends who can help out.

Good luck!

I LOVE it when GOOD is EASY: A Tryptic

I.

Last few days I've been searching the web dressed in black because Laura at Lines of Lattitude turned me onto this:

>If Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of
>page views, according to calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year
>would be saved...[a guy therefore]created a black version of the Google search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version,
>but with lower energy consumption: spread the word-
>
>http://www.blackle.com/

I LOVE it when good is EASY. And when it makes me look hip and mysterious. So much so, actually, I darkend the whole computer yesterday. I use the Opera web browser and I chose a black skin for it, which turns out, is easier on the old eyeballs. Most of the places I write are still off white,but the surrounding areas aren't.

II.

Laura's socially responsible leadership doesn't stop there. She also turned me onto the New American Dream's webiste, and it's campaign to reduce carbon consumption by having people pledge to change one thing about their lives every month -- last month they shopped locally, this month they'll drive less, next month they'll "Junk Your Junk Mail", then they'll help "Break the Botled Water Habit", etc. etc. I like little one step at a time things that don't overwhelm me but that keep me on track. I hope I've mentioned how much I LOVE it when GOOD is easy.

If you make the pledge by clicking on the little icon below this paragraph it is possible you will earn GreenDaddy...the man so devoted this website that he posted a picure of his armpit (our most looked at greenparenting photo, by the way) in his quest to find a deoderant strong enough for bicyclers in Houston's August heat... a brand new bike. Because the C3 people are having a spread-the-word kind of contest.



III.

This last thing is GOOD and it is EASY depending on what you LOVE.

And since I've already been busy telling you how to be, I thought I'd actually point your eyes towards the little (unpaid, PSA) ad I put on the right side of the site a couple days ago. Click on it and see how the National Wildlife Federation has a campaign to get something like 10 or 20 thousand backyards certified as wildlife habitats, and what you can do to make yours one.

The process acutally isn't too difficult...I imagine many readers' yards already qualify, though we're only about halfway there. We might not get it done this year, but I'll definately keep the guidelines in mind and work towards them as our yard grows.

But you more naturally greenthumbed people can probably already certify, or just make a few changes to do it.

Just Tea: An Interview with Janaka Biyanwila

A month back at the 2007 Conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics in Bangkok, I met Dr. Janaka Biyanwila, a father and teacher of Organisational and Labour Studies at the University of Western Australia in Perth. He was awarded a prize at the conference for a paper on unions and women tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka. The contest he won is named in honour of Rhonda Williams, who was an African-American activist and economist.

I had the opportunity during a break between sessions to record an interview with Janaka, which I have transcribed below.

Me: Congratulations on winning the Rhonda Williams Prize.

Janaka: Thank you.

Me: Could you tell me about the paper you submitted to win this prize?

Janaka: The paper was about tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka. I was particularly interested in looking at trade unions in the tea plantations. The women at these tea plantations are one of the most marginalized and exploited groups of workers in Sri Lanka. Tea is a very important export commodity for Sri Lanka and has been for over 150 years, which is part of the colonial legacy. The conditions of the tea workers who live in these plantations have changed very little over the years. Even though these workers have been organized since the 1930s, there has been little change in the living and working conditions in the plantations. It’s about much more than the trade union strategy, though. It’s about plantations in general, the kind of productions systems there, because they have maintained these conditions of poverty. My intervention was to look at why these trade unions are not pushing for better conditions and livelihoods for these women.

What I discovered was that even though the dominant trade unions are mostly male-biased, patriarchal, bureaucratic unions, there are some unions that are willing to link up with more activist organizations and to mobilize women much more than the traditional, party-dominated trade unions that exist in the plantations. One of the things that I focused on in my paper was this new network that has come up linking tea plantation workers across the globe, which started out of the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai. They started a network promoting what’s called an International Tea Day, which is December 14, to raise awareness about tea plantation workers across the globe, who are living in similar conditions.

Me: Could you describe those conditions in detail? What’s so bad about them?

Janaka: First of all, in terms of wages, their wages are just above bare minimum. In terms of daily wages, they make less than $2 per day. That’s only wages, but there is a whole regimentation of work too. These women are not only burdened by household work and wage work, but they are also burdened with communal, religious work, so there is a triple burden these women are experiencing. In terms of living conditions, housing and education are key issues the trade unions have been fighting for. They still live in these barrack-style line rooms, which are almost 10 feet by 10 feet small rooms where whole families live next to one another. These line rooms are separated from one another. They are surrounded by these tea plantations, cut off from other workers in other estates. So there is a bit isolation happening. With that, the plantation owners have never provided enough infrastructure. There’s lack of access to water, lack of access to electricity, and lack of access to transport.

Me: What about healthcare?

Janaka: Healthcare is another major area, definitely. In terms of poverty conditions, poverty has increased in the plantations in the last ten years. Malnutrition has also increased.

The tea plantations were nationalized in Sri Lanka from 1972 to about 1992, and in 1992 they were privatised. But the real process of nationalization only lasted from 1975 to about 1977, because from 1977 onwards Sri Lanka shifted to a neo-liberal, export-oriented economic strategy. So the privatisation of plantations was supported by the major trade unions because they were under political parties and the parties pushed privatisation. But in terms of worker conditions, this has had limited impact on improving their status.

Me: So for people living in the United States, Australia, or other places, what can we do besides feel guilty while drinking tea?

Janaka: It’s not about stopping tea drinking. Feeling guilty is OK because that might be an emotion that initiates some interest and desire to intervene in what’s going on in the whole global production chain around tea. All tea-producing countries, which are mostly in the South, have similar conditions. So one of the things we can do is to struggle for worker rights across the board in many areas, but in particular areas of tea-growing parts of the world. There is a website called justtea.org, which promotes something similar to fair trade practices.

Me: Through this website you can get information about solidarity activities?

Janaka: That’s one level. The other level is also trade union action. If you are linked with any trade unions or work organizations, it is good to find solidarity and share information with tea plantation workers because they need that solidarity, even just knowing that you in America are aware of what’s happening to tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, and Africa.

Me: Where I live in Houston there is a focus on maquiladora workers along the US-Mexican border. I think it is worth connecting those struggles with ones in other places.

Janaka: Definitely. In Sri Lanka, we have similar kinds of industrial zones, which are called Free Trade Zones. That’s another area I have been interested in studying, one of my research areas. Free Trade Zones are again anti-union, don’t allow worker rights. Nevertheless, these women have struggled and they have labour organizations. And one of the most innovative things one of these organizations has done is to have exchange programs with women plantation workers. So these young workers coming to these factories from rural areas are experiencing factory work for the first time, but at the same time, because of the way they are organizing, they are getting to share their experiences with other women and also understand what other women workers are going through. So I think these kinds of work exchange programs or awareness-raising programs are so important for building a broad solidarity for the struggle for worker rights.

Me: Thanks so much for talking with me. Is there anything else you want to say.

Janaka: Thank you so much. I’m glad you are here to push the struggle for worker rights and social justice.

Feminist Economics in Thailand

I have traveled to Bangkok and am participating in the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) conference in connection with my work at the editorial offices of the journal Feminist Economics, which is based at Rice University.

The conference is at Ramkhamhaeng University, which is one of the largest schools in the world. Over the next three days, scholars, activists, and leaders from government and NGOs from thirty-five countries will present talks at the conference. Many will focus on issues of major importance to this region of the world including international trade, sex work, migrant labor, and the informal labor market.



At the opening plenary, the speakers were Dr. Juree Vichitvathakran of the National Institute of Development Administration in Bangkok, Naiyana Supapung of the National Human Rights Commission in Thailand, Jean D’Cunha of the UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia Regional Office, and Jackie Pollock, the Director of the MAP Foundation for the Health and Knowledge of Ethnic Labour, Chiang Mai.

Unfortunately, I could not attend the first two talks. D’Cunha spoke about migrant workers in Southeast region, many of whom are domestic workers. She spoke about the situations of women who clean houses and take care of children. Jackie Pollock spoke about Burmese migrants to Thailand. She started her talk with a story of a migrant worker who came to her office asking for help. Her employer had not paid her for three years.



I'm hoping to share more as the conference goes on!

Families Rising

I know it is a little late to share a father's day e-card, but this one really gets at Green Parenting issues. It was released by Families Rising, which is an effort by MomsRising to open to men. I encourage all the US folks out there to add their names to the email list so we can all put childcare issues at the forefront of the national agenda. (Please share info about similar efforts outside the US if you know of any.)

Thank You Cindy Sheehan

Today, MaGreen and I read Cindy Sheehan's letter on DalyKos with great sadness. I'm not sad because she's retiring from being the face of the US peace movement, but because she has suffered so much. Her motivation truly came from losing her son to the war in Iraq, not from ego or ideology. She cut through the divisions within the peace movement. When she set up Camp Casey, MaGreen and I had already ended our intense phase of street activism because we were burnt out by those divisions. She gave us a way to lend our bodies and voices without having to debate points of unity and march routes with anyone. I didn't have to go downtown and ask for a sound permit. MaGreen didn't have to design a website getting out the word about the next protest. We just showed up in Crawford. Cindy Sheehan's authority as the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq seemed to trump all the distrust among activists. Her civility set the tone for the thousands of people who gathered with her in the Texas heat.

MaGreen was six months pregnant with BabyG when we drove to Crawford with our friends Keith and Theresa. The weekend we went may well have been the most frenzied moment in the history of Cindy Sheehan's protest outside George W. Bush's ranch, because a national group of pro-war activists had planned a counter-protest. On the way, we got caught up in the pro-Bush caravan made up almost entirely of SUVs and huge trucks. They had US flags mounted, draped, and crammed between various parts of their vehicles. Their windows were painted with “Support the Troops” type slogans. Right before Crawford, the whole caravan turned off towards what I assumed was their rallying site.

We drove into Crawford as pro-Bush people stood on the sides of the streets or sometimes in the street itself heckling us. People flipped us off or gave thumbs down signs. Many of the pro-war signs seemed factory made and they said, “I’m with W.” Others were homemade and said things like, “Cindy doesn’t speak for our marine.” Or “I support the troops and their mission.” There were several signs connecting the U.S. invasion of Iraq with 9-11. Free US flags were being handed out and the little plastic ones were strewn all over the ground. We had a big flag with a peace sign flying from our car. One man shouted that our peace sign looked like a chicken foot. “Now I know what it stands for,” he said, “chicken foot, chicken foot.”

When we got through their gauntlet of flag-waving and heckling, a peace protestor greeted us. “Ah, you’re friendlies,” he said and gave us directions. We worried that some pro-Bush person impersonating a peace activist had duped us. We had to park in a lot outside a hotel and take a shuttle to the site where the peace activists had gathered. We could see the road towards Bush’s place and there were secret service people there standing behind the “100% ID Check” road blocks. The volunteers hurried us into the huge tent where a rally was in full swing. We walked under the tent and there was Joan Baez getting on stage. Late, Cindy Sheehan spoke, mostly light-hearted quips, not her full-force polemics. “Joan proposed to me yesterday,” Cindy said, “and I accepted…just another day at Camp Casey.” A few more jokes and the rally was over. We missed most of it. Several Iraq veterans had spoken.

Once the rally broke up, some extraordinary musicians took the stage. Terri Hendrix, and Lloyd Maines played with a fantastic fiddle player. Non-Texans started shouting, “Who are you? You’re amazing!” One of Terry Hendrix’s song had the refrain, “Hey hey FCC don’t you turn your back on me.” The infrastructure of the whole camp was well done and clean. The main tent was situated behind “Arlington West” where all the crosses in honor of killed US troops were erected. To the side of the tent were about eight port-o-potties. Also tents for some groups like Military Families Speak out. There was a no drug and alcohol policy. Everyone volunteered to do something. I passed around the donations bucket and collected about $250 for the Crawford Peace House in five minutes. It was so hot, over 100 degrees in the sun, so everybody stayed underneath the tents or an umbrella. Water was available free and volunteers walked around handing them out. People had to drink massive amounts of water. The recycling bins for the “empties” filled over and over again. MaGreen had to find two chairs to sit on and placed them in front of a fan. She said, and I quote, she needed, "one for my enormous behind and another to put my feet up for the first time of my pregnancy."

A restaurant catering group served free food – celery, salad, tomatoes, cheese, dressing, cole slaw, cucumber and tomato salad, beef and corn and chicken and poblano tamales, tortillas, buffalo meat, barbecue chicken, roasted green peppers, roasted onions, two kinds of sausages, a vat of barbecue sauce, pecan pie, brownies, several other desserts, lemonade, and tea. While people were waiting in line for the food, they wrote thank you letters to the man who lent the land for Camp Casey II.



There were people there from all over the country. We met folks from California, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Colorado. There were many, many middle-aged women there. There were few teenagers and children. Also very few people of color, perhaps twenty-five out of the 2,000+ people there. We did not see Camp Casey I where we heard that there were a 1000+ people. Singer songwriters must have been ten percent people there. One young man had a sign that read, “Country singers against the war.” One t-shirt had a Gandhi quote on it, “At first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.” Another said, “The revolution will not be televised…it’s online.” Several shirts said, “Yee-haw is not a foreign policy.”

After dinner, we volunteered for traffic duty and helped keep the road from getting congested. Many of the people who drove by were curious onlookers with cameras and many were pro-Bush people waving flags, giving us thumbs down signs, the three-finger W, holding up signs that said “Hippies go home,” and even people sticking their tongues out at us. We kept telling each other, “No confrontations, avoid confrontations.” Peace people also drove by. One truck had a hand-drawn devil on the back next to which it said, “Bush is my number one worker.” Every now and then a beat-up truck driven by tough-looking guys with thick moustaches, fencing materials in the back, would drive by. They just looked at it all and kept driving. The volunteers said, “Now that was a real cowboy.”

From the road, you could see the sun setting and a big storm coming in. In the tent, three sisters from Ithaca were singing a cappela, their refrain was something like “can’t be silent anymore,” and it was if their harmony drew in the wind. The tent started shaking violently. The overhead lights swung from side to side. People were packing up and securing things madly. We caught the first shuttle out. Keith and Theresa stayed back longer to help with the traffic. We reunited at the car. All the hotels in the area were booked solid so we drove home in the night through an electrical storm. Every two or three seconds the sky lit up like it was daylight. MaGreen said that the Calvinists tried to read meaning into everything they saw in nature and it was hard not to see the two thousand lightning strikes we witnessed as symbolic of all the people who had died in Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan wrote in her resignation letter:

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

That part made me want to cry. Camp Casey was an incredible moment in history, not just because it forced the human cost of the Iraq war into US news coverage but because for the people who were actually there it was a time of communion, renewal, hope, kindness, and friendship. That beautiful event happened because of Cindy Sheehan's determination. She deserves our utmost attention. We should open ourselves to the message in her "letter of resignation."

She ended her letter with bitterness and a challenge:

Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

TIme for Change at the World Bank

I find this last video released by Avaaz.org, as part of its Fire Wolfowitz Campaign, less slick than their past videos on climate change and the Israel Palestine conflict. Since I don't watch The Office television show, the jokes don't quite click. What I love about the video, though, is how it portrays how absurdity of the current situation at the World Bank.

Some of my friends think that the World Bank is an inherently evil organization, designed from the beginning to maintain a world of economic inequality. Only the wealthy benefit from World Bank loans, they say. Although the loans are supposedly given to spur economic development, poor nations are burdened with debt and the terms of the loans prevent governments from spending on healthcare, education, and other kinds of social provisioning. I believe, however, that the World Bank is an institution that often funds studies and programs that help lift entire populations out of terrible deprivation. If World Bank governance were improved so that the interests of marginalized groups were considered more substantively and loans were administered in a way that did not constrain nations from pursuing solutions right for their particular economic challenges, the World Bank could be a central part of a successful struggle for a more just and peaceful world.

Instead of working towards a reformed World Bank, we have a sex scandal. Paul Wolfowitz, who Bush appointed as its president, has embroiled the organization in controversy. Here is a man whose last job was to design a unilateral invasion of Iraq. At the World Bank, on the basis of his anti-corruption campaign, he bypassed the normal processes at the bank and cut off funds to poor countries. At the same time, he arranged for his own girlfriend at the bank to receive a huge raise. He really should be fired. Parents around the world should - in solidarity with the mothers, fathers, and children whose lives are profoundly affected by the World Bank but cannot make their own voices heard - demand that the World Bank board fire Wolfowitz. Then we should demand a real change in how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are governed.

Dadaism isn't Dead

For two years our doors looked like this:

I tried to install new knobs, but the tubular latches that come with new knobs were too large for the little hole on the side of the door they were supposed to go through. Eventually, I bought a special file that fits in a drill, and enlarged the hole. I created a little pile of actual sawdust in the process: MA-CHO!

But unsuccessful: I soon discovered that the big hole the door knob goes through was too big to install modern handles in. I needed a giant backplate instead of the tiny round one. After a fruitless six months search, my dad said he'd had the same problem, I should go to Lowes.

When I went to Lowes for the 90th time in search of backplates -- oh, yes, I had gone and not found any many times before -- I found them immediately because I was channeling my father. He would think what I had failed to: I need a giant backplate, and if the the only big backplate the store carries is a crazy, giant sized rectangle meant for a door with an old fashioned key lock, that's what I'm looking for.

I tossed several backplates into my cart, browsed my way back towards the counter, and we have finally arrived at the story I intended to tell:

I found myself, at Lowes, in the large powertool section. I was searching for water pressure washers. Some seventy or eighty year old white man came up to me and said, "You finding it?"

No I said, asked where the power washers were, and noticed his hedging and confused body language. "Oh, I'm sorry!" I said, simulaneously realizing he had no Lowes uniform and noticing his wife was behind him, checking out the rotary saws, "You're just another customer. I thought you worked here but you were just being friendly!"

"Yes, I am friendly!" he nodded, looking relieved. But I was a bit flustered, I am terrible at chatting with nice people in stores, it makes me nervous. So I was trying to flee -- one of the 200 main reasons I didn't become a General.

"Are you a member of that group?" he said as I turned away. He motioned towards my Code Pink, Women For Peace T-Shirt.

In Texas, you never know where a question like that might take you. Friendly old men in mega-hardware stores could swing either directio on the political scale, but "that group" is particularly ominous phrasing. The only thing worse than making small talk with a friendly old man in a store would be watching the friendly old man transform into a raving lunatic. In the power tool section of the store.

So, again, he says: "Are you a member of that [Code Pink, Women for Peace] group?"

And so I say about the most nonsensical thing possible: "Guess we all are, bye."

I know, I know. We all are what? Women? For Peace? Members of Code Pink. I was five or six steps away from him, turned towards the lighting aisle, but still tuned into his voice when I heard him say in this voice that sounded totally baffled but convinced:

"We sure are!"

It was good to agree, but what were we agreeing on?

I Had a Dream about Barack Obama

I missed Barack Obama during his recent visit to Houston, so I listened to a recording of the speech he made in Austin the next day. Obama has made some fantastic speeches, but I was not moved by the recording. Seemed like a you-had-to-be-there kind of event. About twenty thousand people showed up in the rain and Obama spent several minutes saying thank you as young people in the crowd shouted "we love you." At one point he responded by saying, "I love you too."

I didn't bother listening to the whole recording, but that night I had a dream about attending one of Obama's rallies. The rally was in a giant arena, the kind of venue where a professional basketball team plays. I somehow ended up in a seat right next to where Obama stood at a podium. I think I ended up there because the regular seats got filled. Obama was standing before the cameras and gesturing with his arms. I could not concentrate on what he was saying because I was awed by being in his presence. During a break, he suddenly came up to me as if I worked for him.

"I need you to draft a letter for me," he said.

"Sure," I said. "Anything I can do..."

"It's to the board of a local nonprofit," he continued. I was glad. That's the kind of thing I do normally at my real job. Obama gave me a brief description of what it should say and then went back to the podium like a true multi-tasking, genius politician.

I got to work right away. I had a pen, but I didn't have a piece of paper. All that I could find around me was a hamburger bun. Maybe there was a concession stand nearby? So I started to write out a letter onto the hamburger bun while Obama gave his speech, but every few strokes the pen would break through the outer surface of the bread into the soft middle. I was getting nowhere and didn't know what to do. And that's when the dream ended. BabyG was crying and I woke up.

I'm not sure what my dream means. Here are some possibilities:

* The dream is a message from the Green Goddess and I should devote myself to Barack Obama's campaign. The bread is like the Eucharist. Obama's speeches and his mission are not texts to be reproduced, but are a sacred body that I should consume so that I am transformed.

* I really want to help change the world but deep inside I feel that I am ineffectual. The attempt to write on the hamburger bun represents feeling like a failed change-agent.

* Barack Obama is like a hamburger bun. He may be brownish, but he's made of processed wheat flower not whole grains. He is an unfinished script as many have said, but like a hamburger bun he can't ever become a substantial, finished text. At best, he'll be the packaging for a hormone-fed piece of cow flesh like Bill Clinton was.

A Call to Parents Round the World

Take a look at this new video from avaaz.org. My friend jip wrote, "So important to reject this concept of a constant, ahistorical culture clash. The video lays out the lie of inescapable difference between 'East' and 'West' very well."

Ten Reasons Why Our Protests Against the Iraq War Were Not Inconsequential

Back when we were dating, MaGreen and I led local protests against the Iraq war. We were the megaphone carrying, permit securing, speech writing, meeting attending activists. The marches and rallies we helped organize were the largest Houston had ever seen. We spent between twenty and forty hours per week, between the two of us, on anti-war organizing from 2003 to 2005.

We never got paid and nobody gave us a plaque. Our activism was at a tremendous personal cost. Yesterday, a student I work with told me, not knowing my history of activism, that the anti-war protests were “inconsequential.” My chin started to quiver as I tried to calmly explain why the protests did have tremendous consequences. Below is the list I wish I had given him:

10) The invasion and subsequent occupation has devastated Iraq, killed thousands upon thousands of soldiers and civilians, drained funding for pressing problems, and undermined diplomacy. At one level, I’m simply glad to have voiced our opposition, and helped others’ voice theirs, to this catastrophe.

9) We helped develop a critical public discourse before the invasion, which will contribute to ending the war more quickly now. Widespread, public opposition to the Vietnam War did not develop for many years in the US and the catastrophe of that war lasted a very long time.

8) By questioning the motives behind the invasion, our dissent helped prevent UN backing of the invasion and helped to keep most nations from joining the so-called coalition of the willing.

7) Our protests helped embolden corporate media to cover dissent and the catastrophic effects of the war. We helped shape a media landscape dominated by coverage of celebrity wardrobes and football games.

6) We helped build a national and international infrastructure for coordinating dissent. We planned our actions on dates set by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). I attended the UFPJ’s first major conference and voted on its governance and agenda.

5) The anti-war protests helped generate interest in the development of alternative, local media in Houston, such as houston.indymedia.org and KPFT local news.

4) We learned how to plan actions without much help. We made mistakes. Once we had figured out how to secure permits, hold meetings, form functional coalitions, disseminate our announcements, and stage a good event, we trained other people who wanted to do something but did not know how. We especially tried to collaborate with young people, women, and people of color. I think we contributed to the development of a more empowered and diverse group of activists in Houston.




3) We were transformed. We passed through fire. We saw the charred innards of activism in the US. Yet, I believe we emerged less cynical. We may be weary, but I feel strong inside.

2) We became friends with extraordinary people who worked with us organizing actions. Our lives have been filled with their love and support.



1) MaGreen and I learned that beautiful, unimaginable things can come of our relationship. I grew confident that we could be good parents.

What Should Parents do about Global Warming? Avaaz Karo!

I belong to a feminist economics listserv where the posts generally deal with state policies on childcare and labor force participation rates. A few weeks ago, someone posted a general question to the listserv about global warming. What solutions do economists think will work? she asked. To my horror, the responses were mostly negative and fatalistic. Individual sacrifices, they said, cannot possibly make a substantial dent in the total carbon dioxide emissions. They believed that people in the U.S. could not give up their comforts. And that, even if people in the states did accept some changes, the tremendous economic growth in India and China would effectively cancel those reductions out.

There are a number of reasons why their arguments are specious. All growth is not equal. (Feminist economists have actually taken a lead in pointing this out, which makes the listserv discussion so surprising.) If the US were to spend all the Iraq war money on local daycare centers and windmill farms, the economy would likely have grown faster, our emissions would have been comparatively lower, and our lives would be more comfortable. Building commuter trains and highways both contribute to economic growth, but obviously they have very different effects on total emissions. Also, middle class people in India consume very differently than they do in the US. Growth in India and China does not necessarily mean an additional two billion people living the same consumptive lives people in the States currently do.

Furthermore, when I behave in a socially and environmentally conscious way, I know that my individual actions are not enough. We ride bikes, take buses and trains, avoid eating meat, buy local and organic, use vinegar instead of Windex, wash cloth diapers at home, compost our food waste, and recycle our paper, glass, and plastic – we do all these actions because they make our lives more enjoyable and meaningful. We do them because our actions can have a symbolic force when we share them over this blog. We do these actions because relatively small groups of individuals can change social norms. We do these actions because they bring us into a social network that lovingly supports us and allows us to act collectively for institutional, state, and global changes.

If you don’t agree with what I’m saying and feel that global warming is inevitable, that it is unavoidable and that BabyG will inherit a world of ecological disaster, I say be silent. What's the use of loud fatalism? For those interested in meaningful debate and action, let’s make our voices heard.

I'm interested in a new website called Aavaz.org. The site will attempt to use the same technology as Moveon.org and other such nation-focused sites with the hope of networking a multinational group of progressive people. The main organizers are based on four continents and they publish the site in ten languages. Check out the following Aavaz video:

Avaaz means "voice" or "song" in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian. In Gujarati, we also use the word "aavaz", although we tend to use it to mean noise, which is what activism often amounts to. I think this slippage in the usage of "avaaz" is worth considering. We do have a limited amount of time and resources to commit. We can be active without being effective. We can make noise without our voices coming through.

Although Aavaz is still quite young, I'm hopeful that they will build an effective group. Problems like global warming can no more be addressed by single nations than by individuals. I also assume that Aavaz will feature many of the same limitations that Moveon.org does. The top-down design of head organizers sending out dispatches and calls to action does not harness the creative power of decentralized, collective decision-making that characterizes, say, the Indymedia websites. But every approach has its limitations and I think there is a time for high-achieving, well-funded organizers to tell a group of like-minded people how to act in concert. So take a look at their website and consider adding your email to their list.

The Problem with Dolls

The video below is about a high school student who repeated the famous experiment where black children are given a choice to either pick a white doll or a black doll. (Thanks Cake for passing it on to me.)

Maybe the experiment isn't that well constructed. Maybe it's an oversimplification to think that nothing has changed since 1956. Maybe the sample of little children isn't representative of most black kids in America. Maybe the self-hatred is being passed on by black parents to their own children, a process of internalizing a history of racism even though the colored only signs are long gone. But I got a little teary while watching the video.

MaGreen's stepmother gave BabyG a doll for Christmas, a dark-skinned doll with black hair. It's the second brown doll she's gotten. The first one came before MaGreen gave birth and I wrote about that right when we started this blog. I had the same response this time as before. I resented the doll and I resented the giver. Those brown dolls make me feel hyper-aware of my own skin color. I would rather not feel that way. I'd rather feel like my background and culture are an integral part of my life, that they will be for BabyG too, but without this dred feeling of otherness. Maybe those dolls trigger some small bit of racialized self-hatred left inside of me? I know that Helen's intentions were good, just as they were when she gave me Barack Obama's book. MaGreen says her stepmother has given little brown dolls to all her friends' babies, white and black and brown and whatever else. Her own kind of activism.

The problem with dolls is that they give children (and adults) a chance to openly reveal their deep sense of identity. Sometimes I would rather have those deep feelings stay buried so we can pretend our way American-style to a better future. I prefer the doll that MaGreen's dad gave BabyG. It doesn't look human. Going non-human's the only way to escape race and sexuality. That's the closest I have to a solution - we should ban all humanish dolls. At least then high school students won't be able to make such troubling documentaries.

Houston Goes Fruity

MaGreen, BabyG, and I went to Urban Harvest’s annual fruit tree sale on Saturday, January 20, here in Houston. Within minutes of the 9:30 am opening, people – at least a thousand folks – had cornered almost every tree and vine.

Urban Harvest is a non-profit dedicated to nurturing communities through gardening education. They hold classes, send instructors to schools, maintain a seed library, and disseminate information about how to garden in the Houston area. Their largest event is an annual fruit tree sale. The sale has grown steadily and this year it was moved to a new, more commodious space next to the Emerson Unitarian Church.

The main fruit trees available were those that are ideal for Houston’s climate: oranges, lemons, grapefruit, kumquats, limes, tangerines, persimmons, apples, pears, figs, grapes, blackberries, peaches, nectarines, plums, mulberries, pomegranates, jujubes, blueberries and mulberries. An addition to this year’s sale were more tropical and sub-tropical plants like dwarf mangos, star fruit, Cherry of the Rio Grande, and jaboticaba.

By the time I arrived, just fifteen minutes after the opening, only a few orange and lime trees remained. The mood was civil, but people had a half-crazed look as they guarded their plants. Late comers looked bewildered. The check-out line snaked around the entire lot. The Urban Harvest website says, “Our vision for Houston is a city thriving with a network of gardens and orchards building community health, vitality and pride.” Seeing all those people clutching at their trees made me feel hopeful about this beast of a city. Maybe Urban Harvest’s vision is possible.

Their next sale will not be until January 2008. Check out Urban Harvest’s list of other fruit tree sales around Houston if you live nearby and can’t wait.

Continuing the Struggle for Reproductive Rights

MaGreen and I attended Planned Parenthood luncheon on Friday, which is an annual event marking the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the US. Nine hundred people attended the event including notable public figures like Sarah Weddington, who at the age of twenty-six argued the winning side of the Roe v. Wade case. There were also several elected officials present including State Reps Alma Alan, Elen Cohen, and Rick Noriega; City Controller Anise Parker; and City Councilmembers Sue Lovell and Peter Brown. Volunteers, donors, staff, and other supporters filled the tables.

Outside, on the sidewalk, about ten anti-abortion protestors held up signs and passed out pamphlets. One of them noticed my Planned Parenthood name tag and asked me if I believed women should have abortions. I said, “I believe in women’s right to choose.” Then she asked my friend, a woman, “Don’t you think women should have the right to choose pregnancy?”

“Of course,” my friend said. I was reminded not only of the different between our beliefs and theirs, but also of the difference between what they believe we believe and what we actually believe.

Inside, the keynote speaker, Marcia Ann Gillespie, gave an inspiring speech on reproductive rights. Gillespie served as the editor-in-chief of Essence and Ms. magazines and has participated in a number of struggles for racial, gender, and economic justice. She spoke about the difficulties of living a life of activism. She said, “When we remain committed to human rights, we often feel alone.” She also noted the need to question one’s own privileges and assumptions in what she called “a constant de-crudding process.” I really liked that phrase. Gillespie noted that her blindness to heterosexual privilege was one of the later layers of crud that she shed.

For me, real understanding of gender inequality came late, and is still coming. I did not have a strong opinion about reproductive rights until I was in college and various people tried to convince me of their positions. It was not until I was in a small gathering where a gynecologist explained why he performed abortions that my own position solidified. He said he didn’t have a single reason, one airtight argument, for supporting reproductive rights. He said that his patients each have their own stories. Sometimes a woman has been raped. Her life is in jeapardy. Or the fetus has miscarried. Birthcontrol failed. Perhaps the woman did not use protection and does not believe that a pea-sized cluster of cells in her own body ought to become a baby. Maybe the woman is poor and lives in a country that does not support mothers, where she and the possible child will not be able to live a dignified life. Or the woman has already had six children and does not want anymore. Each of those stories are the reasons.

Even if we do not agree with the validity of every single one of those reasons, we should support the right and the capability of those women to choose abortion during the first trimester, as one choice among other possible choices. Protecting that right should be one part in a larger struggle for gender equality, fair distribution of wealth, affordable childcare, universal healthcare, and education.

Green, Socially Responsible Gift Giving

Dec 2007 update

Ouch, says my pocketbook. But, alas, I have never figured out how to extricate myself from participating in the winter holidays’ madness. Plus, BabyG and GreenDaddy have birthdays December 22nd. And BabyG’s Dadi, GreenDaddy’s dad, has a birthday the 26th. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

The main reason I can’t excuse myself from gift-giving frenzies is that I like giving, and I like receiving. My dad liked holidays, especially this one. My family didn’t do a lot of things well…but holidays and gift giving were good. We never had tons of gifts, we just always exchanged thoughtful ones. And this is still important to me. I liked sitting in a room with the whole family, opening things one at a time, mulling over each, remembering them. It’s the surprise I love most. I like adorning my family and friends with things they’ll love but not expect. And these days, I enjoy figuring out how to give people surprising, delightful, AND worthwhile gifts…which means socially responsible, green, charitable, homemade, or local.

In my green gift guide, below, I’ve sort of categorized the sorts of gift genres I like. Sometimes I construct a green gift; sometimes I get an item that I would otherwise label hoary from a local shop or a used store and feel better about it; sometimes I get a fairly traded gift from the web. Generally This list will grow with time, with your suggestions, etc. And please do make suggestions.

This is newly updated for 2008. A couple caveats: I welcome suggestions, but this is not a site to advertise stores. I mention stores I've been to or shop at, but the goal here isn't to amass a long list of deserving stores. Mostly it's a list of 'generes' of giving with examples I particularly like. So feel free to leave info about your store in the comments, but don't be offended if I never ad it. There are millions of organic clothing stores, for example...I note this, and suggest people google them rather than this list being over-wrought.

SUPPORTING LOCAL ECONOMY
Basically, the local version of any of the following is better than the internet-purchased version in terms of supporting local businesses. Local meaning a store owned by an individual in your community--probably not a corporation-- or a non-profit organization in your community. If the choice is from Amazon or Target, I don’t see a huge difference, especially if you’re sending it to an Auntie in Argentina or something.
1) Crafts, Foods, Clothes from Locally Owned Fair Trade Shops.
Most major cities have a few. In Houston we have an ever growing number, though I most often frequent: Corazon, Taft Street Coffee, and Ten Thousand Villages (which is a chain, but a worthy one…). Hey, see what shops sell fair trade products in your part of the states (there’s not a world-wide listing, yet…but Google…)
2) Resale or antique shops. I am not a pro at Houston resale. Mostly, I go to a resale children’s shop called Young and Restless. In Montrose I go to Bluebird Circle, but I know this city abounds with good resale I don't know about. I will quote a little birdie's comment on adult resale rather than paraphrase: "Blue Bird on W Alabama is the granddaddy of resale - good selection of furniture and so forth and they sort the clothes by size. Catholic Charities on Lovett and the Junior League shop in the Heights also sort by size, but the Junior League store is best for the size fours of the world. Salvation Army on Washington and Goodwill on the North Freeway are the largest of their brethern."
3) Gifty Foods or Crafts from Farmers Markets Etc. We go to Central City Co-Op and they sell little edible items. Friends like Bayou City Farmer’s Market and Mid-Town Farmer’s Market. To find other Texas or US markets, go to Local Harvest.
4) Support A Local Charity instead of a Mega-One In Your Loved One’s Name. Too many to mention…
6) Gift certificates to local venues…restaurants, your favorite baby shop, a masseuse, an art class, a composting class, a cooking class, a writing class
7) Memberships to a local museum…children’s, mfa, natural science, zoo. 
8) Pass to a National Park in your area…go here
9) Shops of all Ilks. Childrens’, bookstores, bikes, hardware stores, antique shops. Might cost a little extra, but hey, no shipping and handling and the monetary and environmental costs it incurs.

GIVING DOUBLE, aka, SUPPORTING CHARITIES, SERVICE, JUSTICE:
All sorts of charities are making it very easy for you to give in another person’s honor. Most send the person something representative of your purchase, be it a certificate, a photo, a turtle tracking system, or the National Green Pages.
1) Giving That Benefits People: Give a cow to a family in a loved one’s name via Heifer International ... conservatives in the family?  They're pro-Heifer, from what I've gleaned in my own family.  You can all feel good about a gift from there.  Or help a rural community develop health or social services (or a number of other options) via Seva Foundation, Oxfam.  
2) Giving That Benefits Social Justice. Purchasing gift memberships for your loved ones to Oxfam, CoOp America, Pacifica, whatever organization it is you think they’d appreciate membership to.
3) Giving That Promotes the Environment. Trees for Life.
4) Giving That Promotes Conservation. Nature Conservancy gifts to save forests and reefs
5) Giving To Benefit Animals: Adopt and track a sea turtle throughout the year at Seaturtle.org, Farm Sanctuary
6) There are numerous websites that offer much longer lists of the many different ways you can give these sorts of gifts. The ones above caught my eye for various reasons. But here are three good sites to goto if none of the ones I’ve offered tip your kettles: JustGive.org, NoMoreSocks (defunct!), Oxfam, National Resources Defense Council
7) Echoage is a company that you ask guests to give $20 to for a gift (birthday is the idea on the site) and half that money goes to buying one gift for the child, the other goes to the cause of the child & parents' choice.

GIFT GIVING THAT PROMOTES EDUCATION , IMAGINATION &/OR IS SUPPORTIVE OF BUILDING FAMILY COMMUNITY:
There are millions of sites, so I won’t go into detail. But I like the ideas over at NoMoreSocks.
1) Scientific Toys
2) Board Games
3) Craft Items
4) Costumes, puppets…
5) Music
6) Photo related I have used Zazzle a couple of years to make mugs, aprons, t-shirts that make grandparents happy. Zazzle has a lot more options than similar sites for standard items. I am newly impressed with the sites Moo for unusual photo gifting options and the site QOOP because it makes nice photo books.

GIVING THAT GROWS:
I forgot this on my original lists, and it has been a longtime favorite gift of mine: sending seedlings or windowbox gardening kits to friends throughout the country. Last year I sent tomato plants to several relatives via Windowbox.com -- though they messed up two orders, they resent one and credited me money for the other, and I had a good experience. Windowbox promotes gardening for people w/o the space, which I think is a fabulous idea. Still, this year, my gifts will come via Seeds of Change because they sell organic plants and work hard at preserving biodiversity. You can buy a truffle tree for somebody to reap the benefits of, rent vines you get the bottles of wine from...

SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ITEMS FROM SOME FAIR TRADE SHOP OR ‘GREEN’ COMPANY (ORGANIC, FAIRLY TRADED, AND/OR vegan):
Basically, you can get the green version of about anything, but it costs…Also, check to make sure item is really green…ie, many yoga mats from green companies are made out of gassing plastics. Many green things aren’t “fair trade” and “vice-versa.” I’m happy when I can get both (and can buy them locally!)…but it doesn’t always happen. I’d shop around for most any of these items…you CAN find good deals if you look hard enough
1) Clothes: Buying new (or used!), organic, worker friendly, fairly traded, and/or vegan clothes or wallets, bags, or shoes.
2) Crafts: Buying fairly traded crafts from around the world for your loved ones try Global Exchange, Bright Hope, Ten Thousand Villages, World of Good
3) Food Items: AKA fairly traded coffee, teas, chocolates…Global Exchange, Café Campesino, Shaman Chocolates, Glee Gum
4) Personal Care Items: Soaps, salts,at stores like Our Green House.
5) Toys: Wood, cotton, pvc-free…Kid Bean, Toys from the Heart, Peapods
Portals to find the stores that sell these goods: Co-Op America, Eco Mall, Global Exchange
6) Jewelry: Buy recycled gold etc from GreenKarat.com
7) Movies: Buy movies that support women filmmakers at WomenMakeMovies.com
8) Health equipment. Healthy yoga mats at stores like Natural Fitness.

SITES WITH MORE SPECIFIC GOOD IDEAS FOR GIFTS YOU CAN PURCHASE
1) The Green Guide via Grist
2) Co-Op America’s Green Pages
3) Environmental Defense
4) Tree hugger

BETTER WHEN THEY’RE USED…:
1) Books are good to give used, as they’re not particularly environmentally friendly. And it goes against the idea of local, but these days, it’s pretty easy to get a new-looking used book online. Or go the other way and get a funky old edition of a book, or an illustrated old edition…
2) Jewelry. Want to avoid supporting icky work practices in the mining industry & yet still get your sweetie some kind of bling? Antique jewelry is a good choice…
3) Baby/Kid Things. You can get good wooden baby toys and avoid those nasty plastic chemicals. Or a snowflake dress some baby only wore once. Or black patent leather shoes a baby wore twice. Or cool costumes for babies, kids, toddlers…
4) Furniture. Buy a crappy old table and refinish it. Or if you’ve got the dough, buy a refinished table.
5) Wrapping Paper. I’m ahead of myself here, but as long as you’re out, used stores (and your attic and about everywhere you look) is full of papers or cloth that make inexpensive, cool looking, distinctive wrappings.
6) Doo-dads. You know who you’re shopping for better than I do…go hunting!

HOME-MADE, CHEAP, OR FREE (AKA TIME)…GOOD FOR KIDS & STUDENTS OF ALL ILKS:
1) Bake. Deliver the goods to friends in lieu of purchased gifts
2) Books. Construct them yourself, write a poem or a story, or uses photos…or both…
3) Ornaments, picture frames, magnets. Go to a craft store (or a used store) find materials, and concoct them.
4) Calendars, cds, videos. Use the computer to make calendars or cds or a video
4) Compose. Songs, poems, stories, plays, portraits, dances…
5) Work. Clean out somebody’s garage, cupboards, paint their porch, weed their garden…
6) Sculpt. With clay or snow or granite.
7) Cross pollinate these and other ideas you have…
8) Puppets. Make puppets for the kids in your life…

HOARY GIFT GIVING:
A few trashy gifts that are not fair-trade, environmentally friendly, local, organic, or educational always slip into my giving. I don’t stress out too much, because I go out of my way to keep their numbers down. Last year I knew somebody who needed a talking Jackie Kennedy doll, so I will look locally and/or used…but I’m not holding my breath.
1) One way around this is to buy your gifts through sites like HEARTof.com, which is a portal you enter before shopping at regular places like Amazon or the Gap...but if you do enter these places through the HEARTof hurdel 75% of your purchase money goes to a charity of your choice. Similar organizations that give less money -- 35% -- are GreaterGood.com or IGive.com.

GIVING FRESH AIR:
1) Surprise the family with an outing to some outdoor place on your gift exchange day…an orchard, a sledding hill, a river, a park…bring snacks


***This is newly updated for 2007. A couple caveats: I welcome suggestions, but this is not a site to advertise stores. I mention stores I've been to or shop at, but the goal here isn't to amass a long list of deserving stores. Mostly it's a list of 'generes' of giving with examples I particularly like. So feel free to leave info about your store in the comments, but don't be offended if I never ad it. There are millions of organic clothing stores, for example...I note this, and suggest people google them rather than this list being over-wrought.

Greendimes: another use for "Just One Dime A Day"

I keep not wanting to write because I feel like I've been off studying long enough that when I return I should have a fabulously written, hilarious, and/or life-changing post to regale you with. And I don't. But now GreenDaddy keeps dropping hints about the abandoned state of Green Parenting, and clearly, he is not talking about HIS having abandoned it. All I have time for lately is studying and eating and kissing my baby and, um, trying not to trip over ALL THE CREEPING MOUNDS OF JUNK MAIL THAT MAKE MY LIFE A WALKING, HOARY NIGHTMARE. You know what I mean.

A-hem. Speaking of junk mail, I just paid $36 to have this organization called Greendimes write letters to all the junk mail senders to take me, Raj, all our alter-egos, as well as the alter-egos of the people who moved away from this address years ago but left their trash-mongering names behind, off their lists. I could have paid $3 per month, but I opted to have them write letters once a month for a year because we're neck deep in mail here.

But wait! There's more!

Also, every month, these people are going to plant a tree to help replenish the world with more junkmail sources. (Remember: a tree is just another name for the Junkmail Bush). Right. Really, I think they're going to plant the tree to symbolically counter-act all the trees junkmail has killed...100 million a year, they say.

So we'll get twelve trees planted in our name, somewhere in the world...and our mail will no longer consist of things that come almost daily and that go straight the recycle bin: UFO related offers, chain letters, Marlboro coupons, and half-priced psychic readings...all meant for Aaron Fance (God DIME you Aaron Fance, wherever you are!); credit card offers in my name but good for anybody who opens the mail and sends it in (God DIME you too greedy people!); and, most peeving, of late, Party City Haloween ads filled with seven year old girls dressed like hookers...which is too depressing, really, to damn with a cheesy pun.

Anyways. Greendimes is a fairly new business, it seems. They have good customer service. I'm excited to see if this system works.

They also want other people beside me to join. I think you might as well. (And they're not paying me to say this. They don't even know what Green Parenting is.)

Well, now, toodle-oo. I'm off to study more books -- or actually to study the Too Late the Phalarope Summary on BookRags. I read the book but now they're all blurring in my head and I need something to sort my ideas out. ...but no more chatting, people, because my comps are just 13 DIMES AWAY...)

The Compact

I joined the Sierra Club last year so that I could vote against the board take-over attempt by anti-immigration forces. To my delight, I received a backpack, which we use as our diaper bag, and several publications, both in print and online. A couple of day ago I was reading a Sierra Club publication called The Green Life. It had an article about a little movement out of San Francisco called The Compact. People who agree to the Compact promise not to buy anything new for a full year. They can buy fresh food and medicine, but not new clothes, bike seats, vacuum cleaners, cell phones, or couches. The idea is to consume less and leave less of an ecological footprint.

That idea has been circulating in my head. I think I have probably unintentionally lived by the Compact in the recent past. When I was living on a teaching assistant salary, I may well have not bought anything new for a year, except for books. I have never enjoyed shopping. When my mom took me to the shoe store once, I remember sitting down to try some sneakers on. There was a scraggly haired guy – an Eastern Kentucky mountain man type – at the other end of the bench. He looked at me and said, "These are the first new shoes I'll have bought in five years."

"I have to get new shoes every year," I said. My feet were growing after all.

"I would keep wearing my old ones, but they've got big holes in them now," he said. The tattered shoes he held up were completely beyond repair. I had never seen anything like them. At that moment, to my mom's dismay, I decided that when my feet stopped growing I would wear my shoes out just like him.

So not only do I not enjoy shopping – every minute spent in a store I could be picking at my guitar or napping or talking with my grandma instead – I enjoy the familiarity of heavily used objects, the concavities worn in by one thousand footfalls. As my good friend Hosam pointed out to MaGreen last Tuesday, I only have three pairs of pants. For me, not buying stuff is a preference not a virtue. That said, I don't think it would be possible for new parents to live by the Compact. Newborns equal stuff. And if your children are older, living by the Compact would surely be a shortcut to what I call the Gandhi effect. That is, you might become famous for your lifestyle, but at least one of your children will deeply resent you and try to do everything to oppose your ideals.

All childless people should try the Compact, especially college students in San Francisco. For parents, maybe it is a worthwhile thought experiment. A mental exercise, but not an ideal. Some baby gear has to be bought new, right? Like carseats.

Sunday in the Park with Daddy

BabyG and I attended a rally in support of women's right to choose. Even though I like to talk about politics with friends and family, I generally do not bring up abortion. People have such deeply entrenched positions that discussions never lead anywhere. The vocabularies of each "side" are so overdefined and embattled that even if two people want to have a meaningful conversation about abortion, it can be difficult. The terms are set. The arguments have been rehearsed. When I taught writing at the University of Houston, I told my students not to write about abortion because I have never seen a college paper that manages to present the issue from a fresh perspective, or that showed the writer had listened to those who disagreed with them. I won't pretend to make a unique contribution to the debate.



That said, I won't be silent either. I firmly believe that my daughter and all other women ought to have the right to choose what happens inside their bodies. I believe that if abortion is thought of as an abstraction, it is easy to condemn. But the particular stories behind each decision are far more difficult to judge. And I believe that criminalizing abortion creates a public health catastrophe.



The rally itself was very calm. It was at Bell Park off Montrose. The temperature has finally cooled here in Houston. BabyG had been grumpy, but when I put her on the ground next to her friend Cos she relaxed and enjoyed herself. There were some speeches, but none of them were shrill. There was a wonderful vibe of love and community.

Go, go, go Rocky Anderson!

There's not generally a lot of good news from back home, in Utah. But over the years, one of the topics my father and step-mother relish most, is the mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson. They call me up and giggle about the funny things he's done. Like making a city-wide law requiring orange flags to be placed at all street crossings. People are supposed to carry the flags across the streets, so they won't get run over by all the SUVs. Dad made a lot of fun of Rocky for doing that, and I think it's pretty funny, but I also love crossing the street holding those flags. Just last week, too, the New York Times ran an article on his xenoscaped lawn -- in which they quoted a neighbor saying they loved his lawn, because before it was xenoscaped, it was a browning patch of green.

Anyway, for the second time in his mayorship, he has chosen to protest the arrival of President George Bush to Utah rather than to pretend to welcome him -- and Utah is one of the only states that still has a high approval rating for the president.

And I'm proud of Rocky for sticking to his principles. He's a rare bird in these times -- a democrat who is actually a democrat. To me, he is the best of Utah: a very creative, weird, enigmatic man standing in high contrast to the social conservatism my state is better known for. I am proud of his flags and his supporting gay marriages and his xenoscaped lawn. He's a green politician in a land full of ashen ones.

Moreover, his success in a state like Utah makes me hopeful for the future -- hopeful because there ARE intersting, thoughtful, innovative candidates out there, not just those bland, old-money democrats that so often depress voters. Hopeful because he was elected twice. In Utah.

Since it's hard to find things Utahn to brag about, I want not only to brag about Rocky, but I want to post the speech he made in the Bush Protest he participated in on Thursday. I find it inspiring to hear these words from an American politician, and though we're not in the habit of publishing speeches at Green Parenting, I think this one is worthwhile...I'm going to print, almost in full, even though it makes for a lot of text. I just think speeches like this ought to be spread out through the web, onto as many servers as possible.


Washington Square Salt Lake City, Utah August 30, 2006
      ...Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.
      Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.
      A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.
      That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience - a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid - afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it), afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane, regime that does not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.
      In response to those who believe we should blindly support this disastrous president, his administration, and the complacent, complicit Congress, listen to the words of Theodore Roosevelt, a great president and a Republican, who said: The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
      Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
       To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
      ...We have been getting just about everything but the truth on matters of life and death . . . on matters upon which our nation's reputation hinges . . . on matters that directly relate to our nation's fundamental values . . . and on matters relating to the survival of our planet.
       In the process, our nation has engaged in an unnecessary war, based upon false justifications. More than a hundred thousand people have been killed - and many more have been seriously maimed, brain damaged, or rendered mentally ill.
       Our nation's reputation throughout much of the world has been destroyed. We have many more enemies bent on our destruction than before our invasion of Iraq.
      And the hatred toward us has grown to the point that it will take many years, perhaps generations, to overcome the loathing created by our invasion and occupation of a Muslim country.
      What incredible ineptitude and callousness for our President to talk about a Crusade while lying to us to make a case for the invasion and occupation of a Muslim country!
       Our children and later generations will pay the price of the lies, the violence, the cruelty, the incompetence, and the inhumanity of the Bush administration and the lackey Congress that has so cowardly abrogated its responsibility and authority under our checks-and-balances system of government.
       We are here to say, "We will not stand for it any more. No more lies. No more pre-emptive, illegal war, based on false information. No more God-is-on-our-side religious nonsense to justify this immoral, illegal war. No more inhumanity."
       Let's raise our voices, and demand, "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"
       Let's consider some of the most monstrous lies - lies that have led us, like a nation of sheep, to this tragic war.
       Following September 11, 2001, the world knew that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for the horrific attacks on our country. Our long-time allies were sympathetic and supportive. But our president transformed that support into international disdain for the United States, choosing to illegally invade and occupy Iraq, rather than focus on and capture the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
       Why invade and occupy Iraq? Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice represented to us, without qualification, that there were strong ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
       In September, 2002, President Bush made the incredible claim that "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam."
       President Bush represented to Congress, without any factual basis whatsoever, that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks.
       Our President and Vice-President, along with an unquestioning news media, repeatedly led our nation to believe that there was a working relationship between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, a relationship that threatened the US. Even last week, when I met with Thomas Bock, National Commander of the American Legion, I asked him why we are engaged in the war in Iraq. He said, "Why, of course, because of the 9/11 attacks on our country." I asked, "What did Iraq have to do with those attacks?" He looked puzzled, then said, "Well, the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq."
       I was shocked. Here is a man who has criticized us for opposing the war in Iraq - and he is completely wrong about the underlying facts used to justify this war.
       Not only has there never been any evidence of any involvement by Saddam Hussein or Iraq with the attacks on 9/11, but there has never been any evidence of any operational connection whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
       Colin Powell finally conceded there is no "concrete evidence about the connection." "The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda" disclosed that "his team had found no evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein." And the top investigator for our European allies has said, 'If there were such links, we would have found them.
       But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.'"
       President Bush himself finally admitted nine days ago during a press conference that there was no connection between the attacks on 9/11 and Iraq. It's terrific that the President has now admitted what others have known for so long - but where is the accountability for the tragic war we were led into on the basis of his earlier misrepresentations?
       Besides the fictions of Saddam Hussein somehow being linked to the 9/11 attacks and his supposed connection with al Qaeda, what was the principal justification for forgoing additional weapons inspections, failing to work with our allies toward a solution, refraining from seeking additional resolutions from the United Nations, and hurrying to war - a so-called "pre-emptive" war - in which we would attack and occupy a Muslim nation that posed no security risk to the United States, and cause the deaths of many thousands of innocent men, women, and children - and the deaths and lifetime injuries to many thousands of our own servicemen and servicewomen?
       The principal claim was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - biological and chemical weapons - and was seeking to build up a nuclear weapons capability. As we now know, there was nothing - no evidence whatsoever - to support those claims.
       President Bush represented to us - and to people around the world - that one of the reasons we needed to make war in Iraq - and to do it right away - was because Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons. His assertions about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase nuclear materials from an African nation and about Iraq seeking to obtain aluminum tubes for the enrichment of uranium were challenged at the time by our own intelligence agency and scientists, yet he didn't tell us that! Ten days before the invasion of Iraq, it was proven that the documents upon which President Bush's claim about Saddam Hussein trying to obtain uranium was based were forgeries. However, President Bush did not disclose that to the American people. By that failure, he betrayed each of us, he betrayed our country, and he betrayed the cause of world peace.
       Neither did the vast majority of the news media disclose the forgeries - until it was far too late. It took our local newspapers here in Salt Lake City four months - until after President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over - to report the discovery that the documents were forgeries - and, therefore, that there was no basis for the false claims about Saddam Hussein trying to build up a nuclear capability. By its failure to promptly disclose the forgeries, the news media betrayed us as well.
       Had the American people known we were being lied to - had President Bush informed us that the documents were forged and that he had no other basis for his claim - had our nation's media done its job, rather than slavishly repeating to us the lies being fed to it by the Bush administration - our nation may well not have allowed the commencement of this outrageous, illegal, unjustified war.
       To President Bush, to his administration, to our go-along Congress, and to our news media, we are here today, demanding, "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"
       Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
       Undisclosed by President Bush or Condoleezza Rice was the fact that top nuclear scientists had informed the Administration that the tubes were "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be useful in developing nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes. Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed.
       So much for the phony claims of Saddam Hussein building nuclear weapons - the primary claims justifying the rush to war.
       What were we told about chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction? These claims were as baseless and fraudulent as the claims about nuclear weapons.
       President Bush told us in his January 2003 State of the Union address that Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. Then, in May of 2003, he made the outlandish statement that, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."
      Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us, "We know where the [WMDs] are." Vice President Cheney and then-Secretary of State Powell also joined in the chorus of lies and misinformation about weapons of mass destruction. Of course, no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons were found.
       Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay noted that Iraq did not have an ongoing chemical weapons program after 1991-a conclusion remarkably similar to statements made by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice before the 9/11 attacks - and before they sacrificed the truth in the service of promoting the Bush administration's case for war against Iraq.
      On February 24, 2001, less than 7 months before 9/11, Colin Powell said that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors," said Colin Powell.
      And in July 2001, two months before 9/11, Condoleezza Rice said: "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
      It is astounding how they changed their claims after the President decided to make a case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq!
      To think that we could be lied to by so many members of the Bush administration with such impunity is frightening - chilling. Yet these imperious, arrogant, dishonest people think we should just fall in line with them and continue to take them at their word.
      The truth has been established. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is no evidence of any operational ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. And there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
      What a tragedy, leading to greater tragedy. We are fed lie after lie, our media reinforces those lies, and we are a nation led to a tragic, illegal, unprovoked war.
      We are here because of our values. We love our country. We cherish the freedoms and liberties of our country. We don't call those who speak out against our nation's leaders unpatriotic or un-American or appeasers of fascists. We have good, wholesome family values. In our families, we teach honesty, we teach kindness and compassion toward others, we teach that violence, if ever justified, must be an absolutely last resort. In our families, we teach that our nation's constitutional values are to be upheld, and that they are worth standing up and fighting for. Our family values promote respect and equal rights toward everyone, regardless of race, ethnic origin, and sexual orientation.
      In our families, we teach the value of hard work and competence - and we are left to wonder about a President who, after receiving an intelligence memo about the threat posed by al Qaeda, decides to continue his month-long vacation - just before the 9/11 attacks on our country.
      As we demand the truth from others, let us also face the truth. Our government all too often has not cared about the human rights of people in other nations - and it doesn't really care about democracy, unless it leads to the election of those who will do our bidding.
       Consider the irony regarding the claims that Saddam had chemical weapons and, because of that, we needed to rush to war in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons - first against Iranians, then against his own people, the Kurds - our country provided him with biological and chemical agents and equipment to make the weapons. Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush refused even to support economic sanctions against Hussein for his use of weapons of mass destruction.
       What did our nation do in response to Hussein's use of chemical weapons, killing tens of thousand of people, when he actually had them?
       We befriended, coddled, and rewarded him - with government-guaranteed loans totaling $5 billion since 1983, freeing up currency for Hussein to modernize his military assets.
       Perhaps those in the US government who aided and abetted Saddam Hussein to further US business interests, while he was gassing the Kurds, should be sharing his courtroom dock as he is being tried now for crimes against humanity.
       No more lies, no more hiding of the truth, no more wars that more than triple the value of stock in Dick Cheney's prior employer, Halliburton - and which, as of last September, has increased the value of the Halliburton CEO's stock by $78 million.
       We are patriots. We're deeply concerned. And we demand change, now.
       No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about whether she and President Bush were advised before 9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into buildings by terrorists.
       No more gross incompetence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
       No more torture of human beings.
       No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined in the Geneva Convention.
       No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to secret prisons in nations where we can expect they will be tortured.
       No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.
       No more proposed amendments to the United States Constitution that would, for the first time, limit fundamental rights and liberties for entire classes of people simply on the basis of sexual orientation.
       No more federal land giveaways to developers.
       No more increases in mercury emissions from old, dirty, dangerous coalburning power plants.
       No more backroom deals that deprive protection for millions of acres of wild lands.
       No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to build better lives.
       No more inaction by Congress on fixing our hypocritical and inconsistent immigration laws and policies.
       No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of global warming.
       No more manipulation of our media with false propaganda.
       No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in need.
       No more federal cuts in community policing and local law enforcement grant programs for our cities.
       No more inaction on stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
       No more of the Patriot Act.
       No more killing.
       No more pre-emptive wars.
       No more contempt for our long-time allies around the world.
       No more dependence on foreign oil.
       No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.
       No more energy policies developed in secret meetings between Dick Cheney and his energy company cronies.
       No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global warming pollutant emissions.
       No more tragically incompetent federal responses to natural disasters.
       No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle class and those who are economically-disadvantaged continue to struggle more and more each year.
       No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts, resulting in historic deficits and historic accumulated national debt.
       No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country.
       No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on drugs.
       No more failure to pass an increase in the minimum wage.
       No more silence by the American people.
       This is a new day. We will not be silent. We will continue to raise our voices. We will bring others with us. We will grow and grow, regardless of political party - unified in our insistence upon the truth, upon peace-making, upon more humane treatment of our brothers and sisters around the world.
       We will be ever cognizant of our moral responsibility to speak up in the face of wrongdoing, and to work as we can for a better, safer, more just community, nation, and world.
       So we won't let down. We won't be quiet. We will continue to resist the lies, the deception, the outrages of the Bush administration. We will insist that peace be pursued, and that, as a nation, we help those in need. We must break the cycle of hatred, of intolerance, of exploitation. We must pursue peace as vigorously as the Bush administration has pursued war. It's up to all of us to do our part.
       Thank you everyone for lending your voices to this call for compassion, for peace, for greater humanity. Let us keep in mind the injunction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."