Side benefits of doing unpaid work: I got to attend a special benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues Thursday night! WHEEL is a member of the Women's Funding Alliance, which sent all member organizations two free tickets. I was asked if I could go (can I?) and find someone else to use the other ticket. (Why would it be so difficult? Shelter check-in times prevented most of the homeless women from attending, while most of the formerly homeless women are living in inexpensive housing, i.e. out-of-town, and were kept away by transportation problems. And the older women usually blushed at the very idea.)

Just six hours from showtime I called StreetLife Gallery for the third time and found Rango there. I asked, "Do you want to go see The Vagina Monologues?" and she yelled, "Wow! Yeah!"

I didn't even tell her until we were on our way that there was an extra bonus to the evening: a Q&A session afterward with the play's author Eve Ensler, Gloria Steinem Herself, the play's cast and two local politicians.

The Vagina Monologues was a whole lot more than I expected from it. I thought it would be fun, but I expected humor along the lines of "Aren't we clever, we can say 'vagina'!"

I was blown away. When Shirley Knight told the monologue of a refined Englishwoman finding her clitoris late in life for the first time in "The Vagina Workshop" it was humorous, joyful and poignant all at the same time. The way Tracey Knight delivered "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy," there probably wasn't a dry seat left in the house. After Amy Love gave us the monologue of a Bosnian refugee, "My vagina was my village," describing the beauty and the destruction of both, there probably wasn't a dry eye left. (This was a piece that had extra impact just now.)

The show is used as a fund-raiser, centerpiece and major talking-point for "V-Day," a movement to stop violence against women and girls. It certainly stirred up a lot of thought, including "Just why are we uncomfortable talking about vaginas, anyway?" Then the play pushes the envelope even farther with "Reclaiming Cunt"!

I'm not at all sure I agree all the way with "If we valued women more we wouldn't have war" but I do think that it's a part of our whole self-destructive human complex. I want to write a nice long essay working out my thoughts and post it on my main site.
I won't make you read such a long entry here, though. : )

I did get a chance on the way out to tell Gloria Steinem that my partner Wes wanted her to know that the line about the bicycle was his favorite quote ever. She said, "Thank you, now you can tell Wes that I confess I didn't invent it. I got it from an Australian woman who got it from a religious debate in which someone said, 'Man without God is like a fish without a bicycle.'" I reported that to Wes and, unreconstructed pagan that he is, he loves the original even more.

At the time I talked to her, she didn't remember the name of the Australian woman, but it might have been Florence (or Florynce) Kennedy, who is the one credited with the quote in some online sources.
Odd bits you can learn at the theater. : )

As Xanga shakes, quakes, reforms and evolves around us, I think... "Hey! We got hit by a Genesis Wave!"

The previous environment is being wiped out and mutated at blinding speed by "morphogenetic waves" from Star Trek Technology. With some hitches and glitches for dramatic effect.

What do we do now? Personally, I'm going to go look for Spock... : )

Just hours ago, a judge handed down the official decision in the King
County Court of Appeals that the City of Seattle's Department of
Construction and Land Use should have granted the Tent City permit
application last year. The judge cited national land use codes and said
that "obviously tents are used as habitations," making it impossible for
the City of Seattle to use the grounds that living in tents is not
legally permissible to deny future permit applications.

Tent City was begun by the homeless organizing groups WHEEL and SHARE on
March 31, 1999 to provide safe shelter and mutual support for some of
the 2500+ homeless men, women and families who have to sleep outside
because they have no other option. Seattle has approximately 5500
homeless people and approximately 2800 shelter spaces. Even special
arrangements for vulnerable women and homeless families are far below
the need.

After the first few months of camping on various public lands, Tent City
began receiving invitations from churches to use their land or parking
lots. The tents still had to move frequently--on the average, every two
weeks--due to the City of Seattle's insistence that the tent community
violated zoning regulations.

In July of 2000, El Centro de la Raza, a Latino community center,
invited Tent City to use their property for six months, and applied for
a permit from DCLU. During the public comment period, DCLU received
over 300 letters of support for Tent City, and about twenty in
opposition. The police department testified that Tent City had no
negative impact on public safety in the area. DCLU still denied the
permit.

Tent City and El Centro appealed the denial, even though the original
permit period had run out, because a decision in our favor would
dismiss the accumulated fines against El Centro for violation of zoning
regulations-- $75 a day for the six months that Tent City stayed at El
Centro. The decision also sets a precedent for future permit
applications to be approved.

Tent City has moved a total of 20 times since March 31, 1999. We are
currently hosted by Dunlap Baptist Church at 8445 Rainier Ave South,
moving Sunday September 31 to The Church by the Side of the Road at
Pacific Highway South and South 148th in Tukwila. We will be staying
there until November 17, 2001. A neighborhood meeting is scheduled at
the church on Friday, September 28, at 7PM.

Most churches have limited property; they usually loan us their parking
lots. In such cases, six weeks is a long time. But if a future host
has the appropriate land for an extended stay, it will now be possible.

And one more precedent is set for our brothers and sisters outside in
tents in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere.

YEEEEE-HAH!

freebizmag dot scum

Those of you who have been reading me for awhile -- do I often call someone a "scumbag"? Those of you who haven't been reading me -- this is your chance to read everything I ever wrote in order to find out if I make a practice of calling people "scumbags."

A new type of spam has begun reaching my inbox. "Our company (that I have never dealt with and never even heard of) feels a great sense of sympathy for the victims of the September 11 tragedy, so BUY FROM US NOW and we'll donate our profits to the American Red Cross." Of course, to buy from them you have to give them your credit card number. Would you normally give your credit card number over the Internet to a company you never heard of before? PLEASE DON'T! (I was going to make a joke about "you can send it to me" but I don't even want the hassle. )

Then there's the guys at "freebizmag" who wrote to tell me they have been working 'round the clock to create a website to accept donations for charities in their local area that aren't set up to take donations over the Internet. Charities, in other words, that I won't know personally. Like I don't know these guys.

And how did they get my email? Because for the first five years that I used the Internet I was naive enough to put it my personal email address on all my webpages and on all my posts to newsgroups.

That's why the only email address I use now in public posting is "anitra@spamcop.net". I funnel all my email through spamcop.net. Whatever spam turns up I click a link, and they analyze the header and generate reports to whatever domains are being used by the spammer. Slowly, slowly my spam is dwindling. Maybe in five more years my address will have been dropped off all the commercial lists. < insert smiley symbol for "I can dream, can't I?" here >

I am reporting all email I get from businesses I don't know who want me to make a contribution to the Red Cross or anyone else through them as spam. I urge anyone else getting such email to do the same thing.

Stomp the little buggers.

Most con artists play on their victim's greed. The ones that make me furious are the ones who take advantage of their victim's compassion.

Please be compassionate -- but be smart about it!

Yikes! It's been a week since I've blogged!

The fallout from September 11 is affecting homeless people here in Seattle. Due to courageous leadership from Bob Santos, former Northwest Representative of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (got all that? ), Seattle is the only city in the nation where a homeless shelter is hosted in a federal building. Or it has been. With the increased security now necessary, the shelter has to move by October 1. Plus the economic downturn projected due to Boeing layoffs both decreases the likelihood that we will get more homeless shelters, or even keep some of the existing ones, or get more, and increases the likelihood that more people will need them.

Between those issues, and concern over hate violence against local Muslims, and supporting my friends -- I been busy.

I do have a new September 11 Activism Page at my main site. Q13.com and WorkingAssets.com are both offering matching funds for all donations to the relief efforts, so your donation goes farther. The Hunger Site is back, and sending all food it collects from sponsors in return for your clicks to relief efforts, through September 30 -- that's one way to donate for free!

I will get back to reading the people I subscribe to, and acknowledging my subscribers, any hour now! Right now I've got a meeting...

Write On!

... back from meeting. This was a fun one, making plans for StreetWrites.

Welcome to the subscribers who've signed on since September 16th: GC_13, Portia, yvonnedb, framaz, gholmes, allan_m_houston, Angeljnny, navdeep, and kluless. I haven't abandoned you!

I haven't abandoned the Sites I Read, either. I've been reading more recently (9/20) than I've logged (9/18) -- now I am going to go play in the ketchup. See you in Comments!

David Letterman and Craig Kilbourne are back on tonight. Dan Rather was a guest on David Letterman and at one point spoke of how many things would never be the same, that we can never listen to "America the Beautiful" the same; "...Thine alabaster cities gleam / Undimmed by human tears!" He broke and David grabbed his hand. "We can't say that anymore, David!" -- I cried, too.

Later, Craig Kilbourne and his guests discussed how and when it will been appropriate for us to go back to laughing and be entertained again. When should our TV shows start doing comedy?

I told Wes, "They should just watch some Irish TV. Or Israeli TV. They've been dealing with this kind of thing for years, and I'll bet they have comedy shows."

Wes said, "They could just read my column. I've been doing that kind of thing for years." Meaning, creating humor in the midst of grim situations.

I've mentioned StreetWrites before, our homeless/low-income writers group. We do group performances as well, with a range of material: grim realities, love poetry, anger, humor. At one performance one of the audience came up afterward to say, "We weren't sure we were supposed to laugh. It seemed insensitive to laugh about homelessness." We explained that humor is a survival tool, and yes, we wanted them to laugh, along with us.

So tonight I've decided to share, with Wes's permission, his column for the next issue of Real Change.

Adventures in Poetry
by © Dr. Wes Browning
September 20, 2001
Our government cheese connection:

As we enter our seventh year of writing this column, we try to stay focused. We try to remember to call ourselves "we" all the time. We try to remember to use the word "homeless" at least once in every column. And we try to find something amusing to write about.

Here's something that I, whoops, we, find hilariously amusing. The literary world has been awed by the news that author Fay Weldon has been paid an undisclosed sum of money to mention the jewelry company name "Bulgari" twelve times in a novel. Ha, ha, big deal! We just found an undisclosed sum of money up our left nostril!

I mean maybe it's undisclosed because it's a nickel a word, 60 cents. Why get worked up about it until you know how much it is?

But after being amused, it occurred to us to wonder whether we were ready for this new kind of trade in words. Could we mention the name of a company or a product twelve times in a novel? How hard could that be? What company would we choose?

We would go where the big money is. Forget companies, we would kiss up to the government! And we would cram twelve mentions into a quarter page, to really give them their money's worth! Now what does the government produce that we could possibly write that much about?

When we think of the times we have been homeless we think of government cheese. There was nothing like the satisfaction of sitting down in a park with a 50 cent bag of day old bread and a block of government cheese. Government cheese was not our first choice, but it came from our government, whereas our first choice came from Limburg, some foreign place.

When government cheese is heated enough and then subjected to sufficient compression, it becomes a fair to passing condiment which squirts. We believe a hot dog without melted government cheese is like an unbuttered hippopotamus.

If all the government cheese in the world were laid end to end, some of it would probably get wet. But, as we always say, wet government cheese is better than no government cheese at all.

In our experience, nothing catches mice better than government cheese. Not only do the mice prefer it, but a government cheese fed mouse is a tasty mouse, in our experience.

It has been said with authority that even though Bill Gates can afford any kind of cheese he wants, he would eat government cheese if he thought it would make him twice as rich as he already is. Like that would happen.

Not many people know that government cheese is highly prized as material for headgear among the indigenous Inuit of the upper Sepik River Basin. Interestingly, not any more know it even now that we've said it.

In a completely different vein -- the following quote was brought to my attention last week and I thought it was worth sharing.

"I feel this way about it. World trade means world peace and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York ... had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace ... beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness."

-- Seattle native Minoru Yamasaki, 1912-1986, was the chief architect of the World Trade Center.

This is what I've been trying to say in my posts and comments since the 11th.

AlterNet -- Dangerous Times for U.S. Foreign Policy by Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of politics, chairperson of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and a senior analyst and the Middle East and North Africa editor at Foreign Policy In Focus.

I am wholeheartedly for hunting down the terrorists. I go a bit farther than most of the militants whose posts I've read: I want all terrorists hunted down and stopped for good whether or not they were the specific ones who brought the sky down on September 11. But as Zunes says, "It appears there is bipartisan support for dramatically-increased military spending, despite the fact that most of the proposed increases have nothing to do with counter-terrorism. Indeed, it is questionable whether large-scale military responses can even have much impact on a loose network of terrorist cells." (Emphasis mine.)

I have the recurring vision of an army of Redcoats marching out gloriously to confront the American militia. Do we remember how that one came out? Do we remember also being on the other side of army-versus-guerillas once already?

I don't think we should do nothing. I think we should do the correct thing. And that means putting counter-terrorists in charge of this effort, not military.

I also repeat, we have to acknowledge our own wrongs and correct them. "Today, in the Middle East, the U.S. backs an occupying Israeli army as well as corrupt Arab dictatorships, which kill innocent civilians using weapons provided by the United States... The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people to hate us." See U.S. Won't Invoke Law Against Israel.

Zunes summarizes -- and I totally agree -- "Instead of focusing on further militarization, we need to focus upon improved intelligence and interdiction. Instead of lashing out against perceived hostile communities, we need to re-evaluate policies which lead to such anger and resentment. Instead of continuing the cycle of violence, we need to recognize that America's greatest strength is not in our weapons of destruction, but in the fortitude, the caring and the noble values of its people."

---

From framaz's site I got a ribbon symbolizing the international nature of this tragedy. I also got the peace candle in my header. Click on it to light a candle or peace.

Many people from other countries lost their lives in the attack of September 11, also, and over a thousand Muslims and Arabs who lived in New York. Terrorists are the enemies of all humanity, not just the enemies of the United States.

An Afghan-American speaks: '... when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators.'

---

Links to reactions in the Muslim countries, information sources and background.

I strongly recommend this study of fundamentalism for additional persepctive on the clash of cultures not only in Islam vs the West, but within our own country. (e.g. Falwell and Robertson with their attitude that "the ACLU brought this doom upon us.") To quote from the study, "When a group in society perceives itself as having its power and authority usurped in the course of social change, the group comes to blame both internal and external causes for its fall from power."

---

I do hope that the wave of anger-driven revenge talk I've heard, on Xanga and elsewhere, will subside into thoughtful action. But as reassured as I was by Colin Powell's speech a few days ago that we were going after "the terrorists and the leaders of the Taliban" only, all the headlines keep quoting Bush talking about "war." While I hear the Americans on the street, including the Virtual Street, cooling down, I hear the rhetoric of the administration heating up.

---

News from Life

StreetWrites is a workshop of homeless and low-income writers that I began and facilitate here in Seattle. We meet for writing workshop Tuesday and Thursday night and we have an Open Mic on Sunday afternoons.

Have I stepped into an alternate universe? Post-apocalyptic science fiction? Or Has our shell been broken and, blinking in our shock, We tumble out into the real world?

Today was the first session since Tuesday morning in which we discussed anything except Tuesday morning. I wrote my first poem in a week last night, but it was still about September 11. But two people actually read poems that didn't have anything to do with it! Yee-hah!

We also talked for at least half the session (in our version of an Open Mic, everyone discusses the readings and the issues brought up) about an interesting question a new member brought in. "How can I refer to God in a way that not only doesn't imply a gender, but immediately lets everybody know that I'm not limiting God to my definition?"

Anybody else want to play with that one?

I have noticed a rising tide of survivor guilt. I guess others are noticing it too. CNN.com - Experts: Trauma, fear natural reactions - September 14, 2001

I guess it's part of what I've been feeling. It doesn't seem right to be writing about sea chanteys, or parodies, or sonnets, or even homelessness, or to finish my article on childhood bipolar disorder -- anything not related to September 11 seems trivial and irrelevant.

Survivor guilt is common after tragedies. I wrote to someone else today: "You were not responsible for the attack or the loss of life, you couldn't have stopped it, and you aren't guilty for being alive when other people are dead, or having your loved ones when others have lost theirs. But it may take awhile before you convince your guts of that.

"One way to handle it is to frame things differently: as a reminder of how precious life is, how important it is to cherish our loved ones while we have them, and to let them cherish us."

Morgane posted a wonderful example of this.

To repeat what I said there:

"A Jewish Rabbi whose wisdom was collected in the Talmud said that if a man saves one life, it is as good a deed as if he saved the whole world. And if the life he saves is his own, it is as good a deed as if he saved the whole world.

"When you live a joyful life, you increase the amount of joy in the world. And we all need that right now."

Pardon me a moment while I speak to someone else. "Anitra, listen up to yourself!" "Yes, Anitra ma'am."

Okay, I'm back.

---

I apologize for any harsh comments I've made on anybody's weblog lately. The last few days have been intense for all of us -- everyone I've read, anyway -- and we've reacted intensely.

I vent at home or in other safe places so that I can work with people peacefully in public. I stomp around the apartment saying things like, "That idiot's family tree is so rotten that the branches would break under the weight of all the sheep on them if they weren't so interlaced and cross-bred!" When I'm angry at someone I'll beg my sweetie, "Can I blow him up, please?" and he'll explain why I can't blow the guy up, and then I'll ask, "Then can I shoot him?" and sweetie will explain that I can't shoot the guy either, and then I'll ask, "Can I strangle him then?" and on until I've worked that anger out. And then I'll go deal with that person I was so furious about like a calm, mature and understanding person. They never know how many times I stabbed their effigy with the kitchen knife so that I could calm down enough to start listening to them as an individual.

But I've objected to other people venting their pain and anger on their own blogs. Your blog should be like your home. It should be a safe place to air your feelings and work out your thoughts for yourself.

I am upset and ashamed about the violence being done to American Muslims and people of Arab descent, here in Seattle and elsewhere in America. I am trying to do whatever I can to stop it, and so are many other people. I know that the number of people in this country who are against such bigotry is far greater than the number of bigots, so we should be able to stop such evil, shouldn't we?

But there is a difference between someone who writes in a fit of anguish, "I hate Arabs!" and someone who comes up to a mosque with a gun threatening to kill men, women and children because they are Muslims. For me to equate the two is as unjustified as someone else equating a criticism of American foreign policy with a justification for a terrorist attack on the United States.

---

There are two ways to play a "victim game." One is to say, "I am the victim of my circumstances. I have to be rescued and taken care of, because I can't do anything for myself. I didn't do anything to contribute to this problem and I can't do anything to solve it." The other is to say, "You are solely responsible for what happened to you and for getting yourself out of it. I did nothing to contribute to your problems and I have no responsibility to help solve them." In most circumstances, both those games are designed to absolve those who play them of legitimate responsibilities.

There are three ways to play "the blame game." One is to say, "This is all your/his/her/their fault!" Another is to say, "This is all my fault!" and sit there in sackcloth and ashes doing nothing but beat your breast, which since it does nobody who got hurt any good and only gets you attention, is just self-indulgence.

A third way to play is, whenever anybody points out something you did to contribute to a problem, or something you can do to improve your own circumstances, you yell, "You're trying to blame ME for what happened to me!"

A very wise minister once told his New Age congregation, "If you go up to a man who has just had his left arm broken by a drunken driver hitting his car, and you tell him, 'You create your own reality,' he is going to use his right hand to break your jaw for you -- and you will have created your own reality!'"

When someone is hurting and reeling from an assault it is not a very good time to go up to them and say, "You know, it was really stupid to flash a big wad of money in the bar, insult the biggest guy there, and then walk home down the darkest street available." And that is what some of us may have done when immediately on the heels of the assault on America we started posting, "The United States armed and trained bin Laden and the Taliban... for years we've been underfunding, shackling and ignoring our counter-terrorist intelligence forces and building up a military force to fight an outdated type of warfare... " and other criticisms.

I do not believe that any of us who spoke such criticisms felt insensitive to the tragedy or meant to sound insensitive. For myself, I reached out to as many victims as I could, including people I know here in Seattle who lost people there. But, also for myself, I felt the clock start ticking immediately; I knew we were instantly in gear for retaliation, and I didn't feel there was any time to lose to speak out -- about not targeting the innocent, about being smart in our assault on the terrorists and for god sake don't go off like a bunch of Redcoats after the revolutionary militia, about making our leaders act responsible about their own part in the tragedy, so that we DON'T HAVE A REPEAT AND MORE OF OUR PEOPLE DEAD.

I can't speak for anyone else, but those were my motivations. They still are.

---

One more bit of perspective. Did you see the interview with the terrorist in prison? He was able to smuggle TNT past Israeli checkpoints with serenity because he felt the presence of God with him. He didn't just believe, he didn't just claim faith, he didn't just have faith -- this man felt a Divine presence giving him strength. It is easy to say he was deluded, but maybe we should think that out. Maybe when we feel the presence of our God and are certain He is with us and inspiring us we should stop to test that inspiration. It is just as easy for a Christian or a mystic to rationalize hurting people for some ultimate good as it is for an Islamic fundamentalist.

---

I am also immensely proud of my fellow Americans pouring out their hearts in helpling each other: risking their lives to search the rubble, giving blood, donating and gathering food, giving their skills and time freely as doctors or counselors, and all the other ways we are pulling together. In times of emergency we act so much nobler, more courageous, more caring, more aware -- can we stay awake this time? Can we continue like this, and not go back to sleep again?

And I am immensely moved by the intense outpouring of emotion all over America, all over the world, on Friday.

---

In times of stress we need to take extra care of ourselves. Take your vitamins, harvest your garden, have a long hot soak in a bath with bath oil, eat some comfort food, curl up in bed with your snuggle-bunny... or whatever your favorite treats are. It's allowed!

Living well is the best revenge.

---

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