Saturday, December 29, 2012

Newtown

The opposite of violent is ...isolated, lonely, disintegrated, partial, excluded, ...

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Scale

Participatory society doesn't scale . Organization creates small inner group power – the more meritocracry, the more incentive to cheat, inequity is inevitable …

Context

Web pages without cities or countries, disaster reports without maps, newspaper headers without cities, stories and government documents without dates, social network postings without time ...

And somehow related, television programs that disallow the suspension of disbelief - trailers, pop-ups, ads, channel letters, ... - neither belief nor disbelief - numbness ...

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Buddhism and Anarchy

I'm reading a history of John Cage and what shaped him, especially his interest in Zen and I have over the winter read a lot about anarchy. I am seeing parallels in Buddhism's 'non-doing', in Cage's silences, the abstracts of his contemporary painters (Rauschenberg's white paintings), the sense of being, is-ness (all that from the book), and anarchy's model of flattened hierarchy and direct action, a do-ness. Direct action also reflects my own devotion to self-organization. I would not tag myself either a Buddhist or an anarchist. This morning I searched for 'parallels between anarchy and Buddhism' – I am not the first to have made this connection! There are essays noting like paths, and strong rebuttals, and it seems to me that seeing an overlaps depends on how one defines the terms in the first place. There are many Buddhisms and many anarchies and some intersections.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Joseph's children

My father's father Joseph came from Poland. Soon he changed his and the family's surname to Bond, divorced his wife and went to California, leaving seven young children behind in Boston. From those three aunts and three uncles, I have three first-cousins. And I have a sister.  I have this idea that Joseph sired more children, that I have half-aunts and half-uncles and half-cousins. I have this idea that sometime, somewhere I will learn about them.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Ordinary words

Some words are too big, too intense – compassion, love, suffering, joy, freedom, madness – I substitute caring, kindness, discomfort, contentment, confusion … more ordinary processes, milder, attainable. 
 
A Lord speaking to his people would have known how to connect by using familiar words for familiar experiences.  A Lord would have known that exalted language would not carry the message of is.
 
And all the re- words pull backwards, into what Brach calls 'the trance'

re-gret - to weep again
re-member - to keep in the mind
re-cover – going back to prior state

Gluten

If humans haven't yet adapted to gluten, then since the times of agriculture, every single body was a little 'off', a little not their best, a little less than optimum, ...  If alongside that body less-than-optimal, what if mind too also developed less-than-optimal, less resilient, more discomfort, more stress, more irritability, more aggression, less innate ability for self-control, more impulsive ... what if consciousness as it is now is a bit off-track, and better human health all round would have led to a more cooperative participatory less hierarchical system of governance and finance ...  We tend to look at 'human nature' as inevitable, but if we've been going down a wrong track for thousands of years, ... ? If the planet's diet were gluten-free for a decade or a millennium ... maybe we'd all get along together better.  There'd certainly be less of us, since the ballooning population depends on gluten for calories.  I can imagine this as a science fiction, futurist kind of story.

Attend

And now, and tomorrow, attend

Between the illusion of memory and the delusion of hope stands the now of connection, connection to Gaia, connection to each other, and connection to all the components of the self. After now comes forever; after connection comes merger.

Attend

listen to stillness after the trash truck retreats
feel the light and dark at noon
see the undone tasks
pulling

now look away
feel the pulses
listen to a tummy gurgle
know now

Saturday, July 7, 2012

District Attorney Santa Cruz office-holders


Danner retired after 20 years. Canlis was appointed, then replaced, then elected. In 2002, Lee ran against D.A. incumbent Kate Canlis and won. He was reelected in 2006 and 2010, unopposed. He is again on the ballot in 2014.

Danner/Canlis: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/12.24.98/danner-9851.html
Ruiz: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/10.20.99/ruiz-9942.html
2000: http://www.smartvoter.org/2000/03/07/ca/scz/race/4014/
2000: http://onlineartdirector.com/archive/votersguide/docs/scruzda.html

2002: Canlis: http://67.15.208.115/printstory.php?sid=15316&storySection=Local
2002: Lee: http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/03/05/ca/scz/vote/lee_b/

2006: http://www.thevalleypost.com/article.php?id=3

2010: http://freedomok.net/2010/02/why-re-elect-bob-lee-as-district-attorney-santa-cruz-county/

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/robert-lee.asp?cycle=02 – I didn't pay to download this information.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Is 'likely to become' a 'precautionary principle'?

"The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action. "

Whenever I hear this, I think of the desire to medicate and monitor loved ones and others based on 'likely to become' florid or impulsive or crazed. 

I am understanding 'controlling to prevent' as just the same as the 'precautionary principle'.  We'll act 'in case' or not act' in case' ...  None of this seems very wise to me.  It seems like preventing tomorrow, preventing risk, over-determining, clinging to what is known and now, disbelieving any knowledge greater than our collective own, ...

I'm not sure where to take this conversation - I'm not trying to deny global warming and the impact of humans on the environment ... There seem to me consequences that haven't been considered if there are too many precautions and too little risk.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Why I Occupy


My heart feels the great hope of Occupy is that a way around the existing structures will be created, not a destruction, and not a cooperation.

Why I Occupy

Occupy is tomorrow.

I believe the systemic faults in governance in the United States are too broken to repair. I think a whole new version is needed. I think the world is too complicated to plan that out. So I think the concepts, not of disarray and destruction, but of pockets of actions that work in the crevices and fault lines might be the way to evolve something better. I think consciousness is changing, the ecology is changing, time is faster, thought is more networked and less deep. I can't imagine where that will go. I think anarchy and Occupy could take us all there.

Background:

By October of last year, in order to collect together what I was reading and learning, I had an Occupy category on my hard drive.

The coming together and focus engaged my long-time interest in self-organizing systems and group process. And I could follow on the internet.

It was the technology and convenience that drew me to Howard Dean's meet-ups, to become a state Democratic delegate, and to feel fooled by the faux inclusiveness and already chosen messages of the Obama grass roots campaign.

Again, for Occupy, I could walk to the Santa Cruz meetings. Some were in the afternoon.

And I had time; I had done as much as I could with a project I'd been working on.

I went to some meetings, shy, learned a few new ways to organize, saw many parallels to existing structures, didn't know how to connect to the mostly in-person groupings, read Graeber's Debt, and others, defined anarchy for myself, was drawn to the pragmatism of action, and when the attendance became less, began to speak up a little. I was dismayed by the group distancing after River St and the camp closure, dismayed by law enforcement collusion and retaliation, now disturbed by the felony charges, and I can voice some of this distress.

I believe I have some social capital, an advocacy reputation, age, privilege – I want to use that to see those charges dismissed.

If Occupy succeeds in changing the world, it will be sweet for my granddaughter to know of my involvement.

So I'm here because of moral outrage, ego, and a fantasy of a change beyond imaging.






Saturday, May 5, 2012

is-ness


Believers can trace cause and prediction from early religious writings.
Those on spiritual paths are guided by tuning into a universal harmony.
Rule followers rely on precedent and law to assess current deviations.
Artists have insights which they reveal in their styles and works.
Meditators calmly observe themselves, or a mandala, or chant to still their thoughts.
Scientists now say that the rational is only a part of the mind, that there are non-conscious inputs to decision making.

Consciousness is becoming more sophisticated, providing sharper observations and more complex explanations.

I'm wondering if all the explanations are conceits, category errors with insufficient distance.

I'm wanting to say none of the above. It all just is, and the pattern-loving mind is a trickster.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Getting out the vote


Would democracy work better if there were a quorum for elections – some % of those eligible to vote and/or some % of those registered to vote?

Or fine citizens for not voting, as some countries do.

Sloth


I watched a few minutes of a television series on the seven deadly sins, this one was on sloth. Originally, as well as the well known other six, there were sins of apathy and of sadness which were later combined into sloth. Sloth became the worst sin, fundamental to all the others, because of the laziness of allowing wrong to flourish by passively not intervening. What struck me so was that the original beliefs were that this behavior was deliberate, under the control of will, and that the behaviors would today be called depression. I better understand the attitude of some that one just needs to pull one's self up and bite the bullet and soldier on, and so forth.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Conspiracy

There's a persuasive DVD titled Federal Reserve that traces today's global inequity to careful planning. The connections run from Davos to Bohemian Grove, and include birth control, two salary families, credit cards. We got to now through grand strategy and deliberate manipulations by a few of the powerful.
 
I've been long interested in self-organizing theory, power laws, an inevitability of amassing and toppling. I think that is what got us to now.

Believing in a conspiracy of the powerful is more optimistic, accepts that individual responsibility won't be enough, suggests options of acceptance or overthrow.

Believing that self-organizing can be modulated by expanding human consciousness asks a lot of the evolving human mind.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Denial of personal mortality and the denial of planetary doom

The single-mindedness of human intervention in the global ecology - altering air, water, earth and life span with inadequate attention to the long term – seems parallel to the inattention to human mortality. Placing natural cycles of decay and change and growth in the background, while we continually build, improve, extend, grow … - my images are of block towers toppling over, trajectories speeding out of orbit, infrastructures decaying, systems imploding from their own weight.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Thursday, March 22, 2012

2012 - Jubilee Year - 2012

2012 – Jubilee year - 2012

After each dramatic change in governance, new rulers clear the slate, forgive debt, impose new taxes. Today, instead of reining in corporations directly, we can forgive all personal debt by fiat, and let that comprehensive rebalancing lead to system changes and tax code revisions.

I see appeal in these ideas for fundamentalists and liberals and pragmatists and debtors. The Old Testament mandates a sabbath day every seven days, a sabbatical year every seven years, and a Jubilee, every seven seven years, when fields rest and slaves are freed, and indentured and other debt is rebalanced. Thomas Jefferson proposed canceling all debts every 19 years, and David Graeber in Debt's conclusion, suggests forgiveness now as a way out of the global mess we are in.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

action is speech

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. It follows that for those without money, action must substitute and is speech.

Our country was founded by direct action – what our law now calls trespass and vandalism - dumping the East India company's tea into Boston's harbor.

Entering 75 River St was an action similar to donating money to a campaign, an attempt to put forth an idea, to educate and to win minds. How can that become a felony?

Do not disadvantage those without money, without power, those from whom action must become voice.

True, there's no excuse for damaging the property of another. Just as there's no excuse for damaging the commons. But we are not even slapping the wrists of big banks; instead we are bailing them out.

So it seems unbalanced to press criminal charges on those who chose an unsubtle way to bring these ideas to local attention.

Why do we feel the way we do about these occupiers? Some feel violated, some vindicated, some feel as if they are family, … Regardless, felony charges stray from a just result.

The eyes of many are on Santa Cruz.   We must let mercy shine.

prison terms for social protest

"People first, then money, then things" is the tag line of popular television personality and finance whiz Suze Orman. The Santa Cruz County District Attorney's felony charges for entering a long vacant commercial building have reversed this order: first things and property, then money and clean-up costs, and last, people - urging prison terms for social protest.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Focus: 75 River Street

The rave occupation at 75 River St has had consequences. More are aware of local economic disparities. Occupy Santa Cruz has lost some centrist support. District Attorney Bob Lee has selected harsh and costly actions. The Occupy Santa Cruz supporters, law enforcement, and our electeds have seen the consequences of this three day autonomous action. Now we must set an example of moderation and restraint. Now we must not not turn away our hearts.  It's time to absorb what we've learned, dismiss the charges and agree on a settlement, and focus again on the budget shortfalls, unemployment, foreclosures and poverty in Santa Cruz County.

  • Related Facts, Hearsay, and Opinion:

    •  
    • Rave: An all-night dance party, especially one where techno, house, or other electronically synthesized music is played.
    • The rave was spontaneous, fluid, leaderless.
    • 75 River St was unused, vacant.
    • Some say 75 River St was not posted against trespass.
    • Felonies have been charged. Only misdemeanors could have been charged. Fines could have been chosen.
    • What are the anticipated aggregate county costs for the 22 felonies and 44 misdemeanor charges, arraignments, prelims, jury trials, incarcerations?
    • Wells Fargo CEO 2011 compensation $19,000,000
    • After Wells Fargo fails to recoup by punishing individuals, the insurer will absorb the clean-up costs.
    • UCSC, in an analogous occupation (Kerr Hall), levied $1000 fines.
    • Over 100 people were inside or beside the property from Nov 30 – Dec 4, 2011.
    • Unused, un-repurposed private property is a trespass on the commons.
    •  
    •  

    Saturday, February 25, 2012

    Who owns 75 River St, 95060?

    75 River St belonged to Washington Mutual, then to WMRP Delaware, a Washington Mutual, Inc. subsidiary, and on 10/05/1999 became the property of Barry Swenson, Associates 1, 701 North First St, San Jose, CA 95112.
    http://clerkrecorder.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/RealEstate/SearchResults.aspx

    On the assessor's forms, taxes are to be paid by Thomson Property Tax Services which has an address in Carlsbad, CA and which seems to now be this company
    http://fasttax.thomson.com/solutions/property-tax/property-tax-us/ . 

    The Treasurer's office staff says tax payee is Realty Associates 1, Houston, TX – I have no information on them – this could be verified, explored.

    Last year's taxes were $40K. Current assessment is $3.4 M
    http://sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/ASR/asrval.asp?apn=005-052-32
    Instrument # 1999-0064936
    http://clerkrecorder.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/RealEstate/SearchResults.aspx
    (APN = Assessor's Parcel Number)

    Green Valley Corporation (doing business as Barry Swenson) 
    http://www.clerkrecordersearch.org/
    777 N First St 5th Fl , Lee Ann Woodard is contact name
    http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=37622615

    Estimates show Barry Swenson Builder employs 100 to 249 people and has an annual revenue of $20 to 50 million
    http://www.manta.com/g/mtkjs75/lee-ann-woodard

    C Barron Swenson
    http://www.corporationwiki.com/California/San-Jose/green-valley-corporation/39657754.aspx

    Google finds nothing on Associates 1, the assessors office records are not properly synchronized – search for 'associate' - 1 and lower case i and neither are all connected in the files
    http://clerkrecorder.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/RealEstate/SearchResults.aspx

    Paul C, at the 2/26 GA, described to me how Coast Commercial was absorbed eventually by Wells Fargo. So far I've not been able to verify that Swenson leased this space to Coast Commercial. And I don't understand then the connection to WA Mutual between 82 and 99 and then when Swenson purchased, between 99 and 2004?
    Coast Commercial Bank, was founded locally in February of 1982. Coast Commercial Bank merged with Greater Bay Bank on February 24, 2004. The new owners allowed Coast Commercial Bank to keep the same sign and letterhead. Hence, not many people noticed the change.

    Greater Bay Bank
    With the purchase of Coast Commercial Bank, the total number of branches for Greater Bay Bank rose to 41. Greater Bay Bank operated as Coast Commercial Bank in Santa Cruz County. Greater Bay Bank operated under other names such as Mid-Peninsula Bank, Bank of Petaluma, Golden Gate Bank, Peninsula Bank of Commerce, Mount Diablo National Bank and Santa Clara Valley National Bank.

    Greater Bay Bank merged with Wells Fargo Bank on March 15, 2008. https://www.wellsfargo.com/jump/greaterbaybank
    The Coast Commercial Bank branches were to become branches of Wells Fargo Bank. Where there was a nearby branch of Wells Fargo Bank, (Aptos, Capitola and Downtown Santa Cruz) they sold the Coast Commercial Bank location.

    75 River St has been the home for six different financial companies from 1966-2008.

    http://www.scruzwiki.org/Coast_Commercial_Bank
     
    Would a title search show more information?

    Barry Swenson is a private company, so I don't think the original lease arrangement between him and Coast Commercial is public.

    But Wells Fargo is a public company so when they took over the lease, the information becomes public, at least to their investors. NYSE:WFC. Their annual reports are online, they have some long term leases, about 1% of their operations. http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDFArchive/wfc2010.pdf

    Wells Fargo home office is in San Francisco, a shareholder could probably go there in person and research. It would help to have an accountant who knew what to look for. At this point I think the impact on Wells Fargo's balance sheet is small and pursuing this avenue might not be fruitful for us locally.

    I do wonder if the lessor has standing in the context of damages, that might even be in the lease, and maybe the lease agreement is something to be asked for in relation to the court cases.
    Local Wells Fargo officials have stated that Wells Fargo leases this building and has full control and responsibility for the property and building. The damage assessment estimate was made by an employee of Wells Fargo, a local property manager.  (There is a source for this; I don't yet know if that document is public.)

    Also who is the insurer, what is the amount of the claim, who documents the damage …  It's likely that the tenant is financially responsible for
    all maintenance and damage repair for the term of the lease.  Is it possible that the insurer requires that the insuree pursue all paths to recoup losses before the insurer will pay?  Is it possible that is why the Wells Fargo personnel are insistent that charges be filed?  Is it possible that the insurer links back to AIG, banks, bailouts?  Is there a way to follow that up?  A link between tax dollars via bailout and tax dollars via zealous and expensive law enforcement - all this out of local pockets?
    Does it matter who pays the utilities? Is that information available from PG&E?

    And I haven't connected the company that actually paid the property taxes back to anyone.

    I don't know how to find out how long the building has been vacant, what attempts have been made to repurpose it, what the tax consequences are to the current status.
    Do fact check.
    Please comment.
    And please attribute when you share.
    Thanks,
    Sylvia

    Tuesday, February 21, 2012

    Comments - failing the captcha

    I can't prove I'm not a robot!

    I just tried to add a comment to a post without logging in - I failed the visual captcha a bunch of times and I failed the audio captcha a bunch of times too - do they want Friday or friday, for or four, ...  Anyhow, if you are trying to comment, thanks, ...So far no one has succeeded.

    Friday, February 10, 2012

    Prescription Solutions

    My health insurer encourages me to use online services and order a 90 day supply of medication. I like that too. They remind me by phone/snail/and email when I'm running out. I don't like that so much. When the doctor's office faxes, the insurer bills me by mail, and then I have to phone to charge to my credit card. Because the doctor isn't authorized to charge to my credit card (I guess that's OK) and the online system has no provision for defaulting to charge to the card on file. So there is this nifty electronic system that requires me to take an extra step and either snail a check or phone.

    Last week the insurer held up a delivery.  I phoned to ask why, had the hold cleared up, asked that my file be annotated to always charge to the credit card on file. 

    The prescription then came very quickly.  And the package included seven single sided photocopied pages of caveats. 

    And an invoice, unpaid.

    Sunday, February 5, 2012

    Hope

    Hope is the subjunctive and thus speaks to “irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred (Wikipedia)”; or “desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help (FreeDictionary).”  Hope is fantasy, delusion, avoidance, procrastination, ...

    Friday, February 3, 2012

    The remarks I never gave

    I am here to bookend two decades of Rama Khalsa's support for people who experience moods swings, fear, voices and visions.  20 years ago she hired the county's first consumer specialist and made sure two dozen of us were able to attend a national alternatives conference in Berkeley. That led to the founding of the Mental Health Client Action Network. And last year Rama made sure Santa Cruz applied for a federal transformation grant which has created Second Story, our voluntary short-stay house run by and for people with lived experience of psychiatric disability.

    Rama Khalsa met the challenge of holding to a vision of health while walking the political middle way. She was an early adopter of health technology - The Santa Cruz Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) is the longest running successful Health Information Exchange (HIE) in the United States. In addition to electronic networks, she was in charge during the construction of Building K, El Dorado Center, and now a Psychiatric Facility. Rama leaves us a legacy of both bytes and buildings It's a privilege to share a few of her many gifts to our county. 
     
    Thank you, Rama

    Tuesday, January 24, 2012

    About dementia

    I have a theory about dementia - start with the left and right brain injury studies, how people make up different stories from the same input with the different sides of the brain. Then add very slight losses of vision and hearing. Something doesn't 'look right' and the mind quickly compensates, instead of investigating makes a story. The stories begin to trump 'common sense' and the mind likes them, saves them for the next confusion. That orientation gets embedded. Think about the overly suspicious, transmitters embedded in their teeth, merchants always cheating them, ... The neutral investigative option has been lost.

    So early losses of peripheral vision, tinnitus, dulling of touch and taste and balance create confusion with explanation, the mind creates and keeps an explanation, and dementia develops as the story is expanded and the compensating physiology fails.
     
    If the chosen story is questioned, the person might become irritable; if the chosen story fails to meet the situation, the person might become impatient.  Because it is too contradictory and so very uncomfortable to hold in one's thoughts a story that doesn't conform to what the senses are saying and it's easier to ignore the senses than change the story.

    -------------

    A few weeks later, NYT is reporting this:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/health/aging-of-eyes-is-blamed-in-circadian-rhythm-disturbances.html?_r=1

    After Graeber

    I'm reading David Graeber's Debt.  I wonder if part of the Axial Age convergences were also the result of human brain development, evolving physiological consciousness as well as general literacy, needs sufficiently met, minds sufficiently sophisticated to begin to ponder abstractions, spirit, exchange, morality, obligation, and to codify both market and moral rules for governing and for religion.

    Sunday, January 22, 2012

    To my medical specialists

    I'm working very hard at closure, winding down, … evaluating how best to spend my assets – time and money. I'd like to deteriorate and die in peace, gradually withdrawing interventions and maintenance. It feels very wearying and disrespectful to have others wanting for me what I do not want for myself.

    Proper preparation time

    It takes longer than six months to get ready to die. Yet we disallow preparations, insist on tests and treatments and repairs.  HHS/ SAMHSA is watching pain medication prescribing (does that more impact we on Medicare, Medicaid, … ? Another obstacle for seniors ?) Now we don't want POLST's signed in advance. There's something frightening and controlling. It seems to me one should be preparing these documents at 18, reviewing periodically, …

    Wednesday, January 18, 2012

    Integrated Health

    Integrating Health

    ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) is professional shorthand for functioning, measuring things we normally do for self-care and for independent living. Examples of basic and related tasks, are bathing, marketing, paying bills … Services are provided (sometimes) depending on the need for help to do these things. *

    I want to introduce another lens, EDLs (Experiences of Daily Living). EDLs are not so much about doing as about feeling, not about activities but the emotions involved in those activities. What support can people be given who are not so good in the skills of interaction, getting satisfaction, feeling connected, moving past … ?


    Experiences of daily living


    Baseline Out of Range


    Disappointment Despair
    Irritation Rage
    Appreciation Adoration
    Connection Compulsion
    Enjoyment Immersion
    Surprise Suspicion
    Pleasure Preoccupation
    Satisfaction Surfeit
    Apprehension Aggression
    Regret Despair
    Disappointment Doom
    Annoyed Angry
    Delighted Ecstatic
    Ashamed Cutting
    Apprehensive
    Nauseous
    Envious
    Cheated
    Pleased
    Delighted
    Disappointed
    Betrayed
    Excited
    Ecstatic
    Confused
    Frightened
    Confident
    Scared
    Scared
    Splitting
    Bewildered
    Horrified
    Cross Furious
    Happy Cheated
    Content Bitter
    Major focus on others Major focus on self
    Ability to balance, rebound, modulate Quick move to extreme; unable to get back to baseline

    *
    http://www.longtermcareinsurancetree.com/about-the-policy/activities-of-daily-living-adls-for-long-term-care-insurance.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activities_of_daily_living



    Monday, January 16, 2012

    The disturbance of loss without a story

    The disturbance of loss without a story

    There is often sadness, only sadness, hidden sorrow, old unrecognized unresolved grief. Why did I learn that I couldn't mourn? And what is unresolved here? I'm thinking about grief no one owns, inherited grief, grief without connected meaningful objects, unresolvable except maybe through exorcism-like ceremonies … loss without a story.

  • She was interior, tears wet on her cheeks. I reached out my arms to comfort and be held. She patted me with a hug and turned away. Her father had just died and I was two. My two grandmothers died and my dog ran away, all in those early years, and I learned boundaries on grief.  We had moved to new space: I had lost the familiar.  Before I was ten the father across the street and the father next door died. I watched how uneasy my parents were with the wives' grief.  My mother's sister moved from the room next door across the country, I skipped a grade and lost a friend.  And this was during World War II. There was whispering at the news and a blue fund-raising tin on the kitchen shelf and assimilation and Josh Liebmann died. Phyllis' father died and I went to the shiva and didn't know what to say or how to be. Richard died and his mother's grief scared those around her and I couldn't cry because Marshall didn't cry . The toy man died shoveling, our age, I could only write a note. Bess died and Marshall didn't cry and I couldn't cry because Marshall didn't cry and when at the service he plucked a daisy from her coffin, I cried and sobbed and got locked up again.
  •  
  • After, alone, I used to cry every day in Los Angeles watching the children like mine, not mine, leave school and after Al died I was in Los Angeles with Victoria and couldn't stop crying. And with Vickie there I turned a somersault and cried and cried. Then I put my face underwater in the tub and opened my eyes.

  • The new baby loses the womb, the dying elder loses even breath, and in between is always change, each difference a loss and a gain. I learn the disturbance of not having.

    Sunday, January 15, 2012

    No tents in Santa Cruz

    90 uniformed law enforcers, black clothes, riot masks, spray canisters, sticks, enforcers gathered from the contiguous counties to augment the locals surrounded the remnants of the outdoor occupiers, chased away most, arrested some, dismantled and hosed down the camp. Some were ready to go. Around the corner bedrolls and gear filled the back seats and up over the rear window or a few sedans and vans, old plates, new plates, out of state plates. The next night 50 walked with purpose and rhythm across Water St to the jail, through the jail driveways, their noise protest drumming and clanging. By Blaine St, as I leaned against the rock and cement retaining wall, I could feel the strumming on the metal pickets in the tremble of the rocks themselves, A full moon watched.

    Occupy

    I see the goal of Occupy as bringing sufficient attention to the structural disarray. After the 99% all are clearly observing the messes and the impacts, then it will be time for ideas and actions towards new methods. And there are not leaders because leaders are about following, followers delegating responsibility and risk to another, and then going along. Occupy is about shared responsibility for actions and results and a continuous individual duty to oversee and adjust the common structures to which we consent.

    Whose interest?

    I was reading an article about ethics. The dilemma below seemed to me to fit nicely with the concerns about hospitalizing peers, calling the police, force, and maybe open up a way to think about it:

    “Whose interests am I holding at the moment? … I don't think you can pursue everyone's interests at the same time. So whose interests are we going to hold paramount?”

    So if someone is harming others, it seems clear to me that the community ought to be protected – police, hospital, talking down, …

    If someone is unable to care for themselves, can peers tide the person over or does this need long term intervention. Are we intervening in the interest of the individual or ourselves, not willing to see the deterioration, or the community, a social good?

    And then, the hardest one, if someone is or wants to harm themselves. In whose interest do we intervene?

    Licensed practitioners have a legal duty; Second Story*, because of it's funding and integration in the System of Care, has almost a full legal duty. Individuals may want to pass on the responsibility to the system, not want to be responsible. Intellectually, I believe my life is mine to care for or dispose of – in practice it becomes not as clear about when to intervene or whether to.
     
    * http://secondstoryhouse.org/about.html