herein lies a metaphor about which i am excited

Sometime soon, if/when I'm able to fully wrap my head around the wonderfulness that was the wedding I attended last Saturday in Asheville, NC, I will write something here about that. For now I will say that this is one of those couples whose coupledom and marriage are so incredibly right that you can't help but believe that the world is and will be a better place for it. Seriously.

For now, I have some thoughts bubbling over about all this sudden talk about the overlap between food shortages and biofuel production, so I'm going to share the spillage (what else is a blog, anyway, but a drainage ditch for the brain?).

For starters, some basic assumptions on my part:

• Food shortages = bad.
• Cleaner transportation = good. (Using less transportation, not to mention buying less crap that we don't need - and therefore not needing it shipped around the world to us = even better.)

With these (arguably not-at-all) "sudden" food shortages making headlines, there seem to be conferences and press releases and petitions and crisis meetings about biofuel production popping up all over the place. And I wondered why, if the problem is food shortages, everyone was talking about biofuel. As usual, Oxfam gave me a good place to start. Seems that many countries whose land is conducive to growing biofuel crops - things like corn, sugarcane, and oil palm - would be more than happy to supply this lucrative new market, and the sooner the better. So they're doing things like pushing poor farmers off their land and, oh, cutting down ancient rainforests to clear land for quick cultivation.

Ironic, huh?

OK, so...

• Doing bad things in the name of good things = bad.
• Potentially good things leading to other, larger problems = bad.

But I can't just accept that these issues automatically make biofuels bad. What about, say, cows? Having grown up in the heart of the U.S. cornbelt, where almost none of the corn goes to feed people (other than by way of a cow's digestive system), I know a little about feed grain and beef consumption. The figures vary, but no one can argue that it takes far, far more grain to feed a cow (or pig, chicken, etc.) that will eventually feed a person than it does to just feed a person.

Moreover, that person most likely lives in the Global North (aka "First World," aka The West), where our meat consumption pretty much just serves the purpose of giving us heart disease and making us fat. Who wins on that one, other than industrial beef producers and giant agrochemical companies?

I guess I'm asking why biofuels - a product that could go a fair way toward helping us mitigate the peak oil crisis, which seems like it has to be a good idea - seem to be the main target in this debate over food shortages. Oxfam's analysis seems solid on every count, but why don't they have another paper right next to it urging world vegetarianism? And a corollary campaign to convert the land now used for cattle grazing and feed cultivation into biofuel production? Can someone point me to evidence that biofuels are really the worst culprit here? (I mean it, leave comments! Tell me!)

This is not, of course, to say that it's all about finding The One Cause - be it biofuels or meat consumption or whatever else - and pretending that everything else is therefore OK. There are clearly some big problems with biofuel production, and as Oxfam itself says, there is also great potential. And there are definite problems with beef and other meat consumption (along with its great potential for... triple bypass surgery?). If I'm sure of anything, it's that neither biofuels nor cattle feed nor any one thing is really The Problem. We just hate to admit that there might not be a simple solution (once we've been forced to admit that there's a problem at all).

• Oversimplifying complicated issues = bad.

Update: Clearly the UN reads my blog.

continuing down the npr path...

I heard these commentaries on NPR nearly a few weeks ago and both really stuck in my head. They are not easy to hear, particularly for those of us who feel pretty secure on the moral high ground from which we have always looked with revulsion at this war. But they are so important.

It seems that finally a lot of people in this country are coming around to the belief that this war was a pretty (horrifically awfully) bad idea, but it's also true that most of us aren't really affected by it in our daily lives (at least not in ways that we really feel right now - I'm fairly certain that my generation and those after us will pay very dearly for the incredible fiscal and diplomatic irresponsibility happening now). So we concentrate on other things, especially as the economy goes rapidly down the toilet.

Many of us would probably argue that we are paying attention, really we are! I listen to NPR on my way to work every day! I voted for the Democrats last time around (not that they've gotten us anywhere closer to ending this mess in a perceivable way, much to what should be our and Nancy Pelosi's shame)!

But are we really? Does we really know what's going on or does it pass through through our brains as a blur of bombs-violence-bloodshed-Baghdad-green zone-Fallujah that seems not to differ anymore, day to day? These commentators urge that not only must we listen more, but that maybe this war will end only when most of us are forced to do far more than just pay attention.

Listening is an important and necessary starting place. And, really, a pretty pathetically small thing to ask of ourselves.

true beauty

If anyone needed another reason to love Shakira (or - perish the thought! - learn of her existence, in which case I suggest you go out and buy her MTV Unplugged album right now, unless you really hate the thought listening to Spanish pop rock music, in which case read on...), check out her NPR interview today. Yes, really. Listen to the audio file too.

A caring, human superstar... how surprising and refreshing.

open letter. or, i'm not so much angry as disappointed

Let me get this straight:

Say, just hypothetically, that you're a grad student at a small progressive institution in, oh, say, southern Vermont focusing on international education and development. Your graduate school is part of a larger organization encompassing a high school summer abroad program, college semester study abroad programs, and an international development programs office. (Though, to be fair, it probably seems to grad students sometimes like the grad school is really what the organization is about, intense-experience-on-an-insular-campus as it is.)

The organization as a whole has had its ups and downs over the years and is finally taking a step back to try to really ensure its long-term fiscal stability, so it takes a hard look at budgets around the organization and makes some tough choices. Some of those choices involve cutting back the grad programs and eliminating several faculty positions.

Undoubtedly (at least to me), it wasn't easy for those in power here to reach the conclusion that several of their peers should lose their jobs. This is, after all, a small campus and the people making the decisions aren't some phantom uncaring omnipotent beings in far-away corner offices. But the reality is that the grad school doesn't make anywhere near the money it needs to sustain itself, and in fact WOULDN'T EXIST AT ALL were it not for the other divisions of the organization (*ahem*... the study abroad programs) making a profit.

(Not to mention the people in those other divisions living relatively peacefully with the fact that any profit they bring in goes to prop up the grad school rather than being reinvested in their own work. Nope. Won't mention that.)

So, like the good activist hippie you are (why else would you be at this particular grad school in the first place?) (and I say that with generally great affection for and identification with the activist hippies of the world), you decide to protest the decision to reduce grad school size and eliminate the faculty positions. You get together with fellow angry folk and decide to put up hand-painted banners all over campus with angry slogans aimed at disparaging not only the decision but the people and process that resulted in the decision. In order to really make your point, you decide to put up a whole lot of these banners during the week of a grad school open house during which current and potential applicants visit campus as they consider attending school here.

OK... all of that is pretty clear. And I'm sure that the angry activism comes from a place of care and concern about the future of the program and the people who have taught and mentored students through that program over the years. I really do think that speaks well of the program as well as the passion and energy of the people it attracts.

The part I'm having trouble with is where you think it's logical to protest the cutting of underenrolled grad programs by pointedly criticizing the institution to potential future grad students.

Where I'm from they call that shooting yourself in the foot. With a fairly large gun.

And frankly, given that you are attending a graduate institution whose curriculum is based on intercultural understanding and productive dialogue, your approach to this issue (at least, the really visible part of the approach) seems altogether pretty unimpressive to those of us who work our asses off to keep things functioning in the one part of the organization whose finances aren't regularly in the red.

You're welcome (just hypothetically, of course).

reminder

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Revolution in Jesusland blows my mind. (And since I just returned from a trip to Jesusland, aka my hometown, for my second weekend trip there in the last three weeks, it's that much more important for me to remember to leave my assumptions at the door... or better yet, packed away deep in the scary corner of the basement where I'll forget them when I move...)

The most recent post, from last Friday, begins as follows:

"Wednesday night, I caught the first day of the Social Justice Revival at Vineyard Columbus, which continues through tonight... Close to 100 churches participated, led jointly by Jim Wallis' Sojourners and pastor Rich Nathan’s Columbus Vineyard church. Jim Wallis is an evangelical lefty progressive with a background in radical politics. Rich Nathan is an evangelical conservative who voted for Bush. The event is a tipping point in the decay of 20th century political categories."

Now, read that last sentence and just try to convince me that that's not one of the more intriguing sentences you've seen in a long time. Yes, this involves reading about a whole lot of people going to a really, really big church. It'll be OK. Just watch out, you might find out they're not so different from you or me. Next thing you know you might actually find yourself wanting to talk to them. And then where would we be?

where to begin?

This article gives a good sense of some of the absurdities (there are many more) in the U.S. immigration system.

As you may know, I spent my first year and a half after college working for an immigration lawyer. I don't really miss working in that field, though I really value what I learned there and the perspective it gave me on how (horribly) our government operates and treats many people, perspective that has allowed me to write the occasional long ranting blog post about immigration policy in this country.

Here's another one.

In regards to the last line of the NY Times story, it's very warm and fuzzy for immigration officials to say that the couple profiled in the story can re-apply for Lawful Permanent Residence, or LPR, status (aka a "green card," which isn't green, just FYI) based on being the parents of U.S. citizen children. That's nice.

Once the forms are filed, IF they are filed perfectly correctly (and I mean perfectly - I saw applications rejected because of one single typo of the sort that made no substantive difference to the application) and IF the USCIS (formerly INS) doesn't, oh, lose anything or forget to process it within their usual wait times, the parents might become LPRs within a year or two. And then, five years later, they can reapply for citizenship. Which will only take a few years to process. IF everything goes smoothly.

One thing that could keep it from going smoothly is the fact that citizenship applications can be rejected if somone has previously (at any time, ever in their whole life) misrepresented information to the U.S. government in order to obtain immigration benefits (note to the international students I went to college with who voted in the 2000 election because they thought it was funny, and because no one at our local polling station checked their eligibility closely enough - too bad if you ever want to become a U.S. citizen). And while it probably seems to the lay reader of the NY Times story that this particular couple has done nothing wrong, the fact is that their application for citizenship ended in their LPR status being stripped. In other words, they weren't Lawful Permanent Residents in the first place, and if they weren't LPRs then they weren't eligible for citizenship. And by the twisted logic on which the USCIS operates, even though the couple did everything carefully and in good faith, they therefore falsely represented themselves as Permanent Residents.

Yeah, sure, technically they were Permanent Residents... but they shouldn't have been (the gov't would say). And for all of us who would look at that and say "OK, but it would be absurd for the USCIS to deny their applications based on that logic," well, we're right.

Unfortunately nobody asked us. The USCIS would ABSOLUTELY deny applications based on that logic. I repeat, they have very twisted logic. Just look at the apparently upstanding married father of two in the story who not only had his citizenship application denied but is now fighting deportation because of an old domestic violence charge that was legally resolved and wiped from his record. (I guess that falls in the forbidden category of having "committed and been convicted of one or more crimes involving moral turpitude.") How in the world does it make sense to kick him out of the country? Who gains? Certainly not his family, which is suddenly uprooted (or husband- and father-less), or his employer or community. Are we safer? Or do we just enjoy petty harrassment of anyone "unlucky" enough to be born on foreign soil?

Speaking of pettiness, did you know that there nine possible eye colors you could claim to have on the U.S. citizenship application? Nine. Including pink and maroon. How many people do you know who have maroon eyes? And eight possible hair colors (including "bald" and - that critical sector of the population - "sandy"). But only five possible ethnicities (stated oh-so-progressively as "race"). And one of those is "American Indian or Alaskan Native." Excuse me, how many of them aren't U.S. citizens already?

Oh, make that six ethnicities... sort of: there's a separate question next to "Race (select one or more)" that asks if the applicant is Hispanic or Latino. Because being Hispanic/Latino is clearly unrelated (?!?) to race (yeah yeah, of course you can make that argument. Trust me, the way they're using it, it shouldn't be a separate question).

It also asks whether the applicant has ever, among other things, belonged to the Communist party, belonged to a terrorist organization, worked for the Nazi party in Germany between 1933 and 1945, committed a crime for which they were not arrested (because this is clearly the time to own up), or - my personal favorite - persecuted anyone based on race, religion, national origin, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Nevermind that we just asked you if you've ever been associated with the Communist Party. Really. We were just curious.

I guess there are a couple reasons that all this bothers me so much that I am giving you copious amounts of probably random-seeming information.

One, jump back and apply these same immigration policies and processes 50 years ago and a whole lot of people I know wouldn't be here. Jump back a hundred or 150 years and almost none of us would be here. And I'm not saying it's necessarily better for the country that we are here, but I like us and I certainly enjoy the privilege that being a third generation caucasian American has given me, so it just feels really hypocritical to support the arbitrary and capricious denial of those privileges and opportunities to others simply on the grounds that they came later.

Two, this is just one of many ways that our government, with OUR tax dollars, carelessly or purposely - yes, purposely; see the war in Iraq and the U.S. correctional system, for starters - really messes with peoples' lives. Often ruins them, in fact. And so much of it happens simply because no one questions it, because we have so much faith that our government wouldn't do such things, that the system is benevolent and makes sense and has everyone's best interests at heart.* But I've seen so much, especially over the past seven years, that convinces me that that's a fallacy that each of us is paying for, literally (Happy Tax Day!) and figuratively.

That bothers me. It should bother you. And we should all DO something about it, like get much better informed, and call our congresspeople, and VOTE goddamnit. Don't wait to care until the system reaches out and screws over you or someone you love. Not just because that approach has been effectively repudiated, but because right now is when we have the power and, therefore (in my book, anyway), the responsibility to make change. Because if you are not part of the solution, you ARE part of the problem.

Does this shit keep anyone else up at night, or is it just me?

*And I'm happy to have a conversation anytime about my theory that this faith is actually THE defining characteristic of what separates the "developed" parts of the world from the rest, no matter what Jeff Sachs or the World Bank or the MDGs say.

THE FISH ARE GONE

And the world, or at least the Monkeyhippy (and anyone who has ventured into my house recently), rejoiced!

Come one, come all! My house no longer smells like a discount fish market on a humid August afternoon!

When I was a kid I was always involved with the yearly Hanukah play put on by my synagogue's Sunday School (yes, we Jews still had Sunday School even though all the other stuff was on Friday night and Saturday. Don't think too hard about it). And for about four of those years - there's a dearth in this area of literature, OK? - we did a play called "It Could Always Be Worse," which I think was based on a storybook by the same name.

My hallmark performance was in the role of the elderly village rabbi - quite possibly I had worked my way up over the years from being a child or farm animal. I vaguely recall rabbinically advising the lead character to go buy more chickens and goats and grandchildren (though clearly it would have been illegal to exchange money for the goats; those were probably gotten the old-fashioned way) and cram them into his already-overcrowded hut in order to learn to to appreciate the relative spaciousness of the hut when it contained only him and his original nine family members. I guess that right behind "do unto others..." in Jewish teaching is the wise old adage that "everything is relative."

While - surprisingly, I know - I did not consult a wise old village rabbi on The Problem Of The Fish, I still find myself now feeling a renewed affection for this quirky, creaky, cold old house. Those adjectives are, after all, so much more innocuous than "vomitously stinky."

hint hint, buy it (the second it)

Conversation with a fellow contra dancer last night (during a dance, mind you, which I note because any contra dancers reading this will appreciate the humor inherent in trying to have this or any conversation as you dance by/near/around your neighbor for about 30 seconds):

Him: "Is that your brother who just wrote the baseball book?"

Me: "Yes!"

Him: "But I thought you were from Illinois?"

Me: "We are."

Him: "So why did he write a book about the Red Sox curse?"

Me (slightly confused for about six beats, then...): "Oh! You must mean the other Dan Gordon baseball book. Totally different than my brother's book. Clearly."

no better illustration

Friend: "So, are you actually not traveling this weekend?"

Me: "Shocking, huh? It's the only weekend that's true until... [looking hard at the calendar] May 24th."

Friend: "Wow!"

Me: "You'd think I don't like living here... Damn holidays and weddings and festivals. My life is so hard."

Friend: "Shame on all those holidays and happy people!"

Me: "Exactly."

************

Don't worry, I still love living in Vermont. Maybe even moreso now that I seem to spend very little of my free time here. What's not to love? The last line of the story about Vermont in today's New York Times says it all:

“I know a nice place where you could go and take a picture,” he said, “but unfortunately the landowner has been repelling people with firearms.”

And people wonder where Vermont gets its reputation.

really, officer

I imagine I'd probably see signs of spring appearing all over the place, if I were to pay attention. Birds, buds, dogs in heat, all that good stuff. But the ones that catch my eye seem to all fall firmly in the "transportation" category. Specifically, I'll call this category "my car."

(This story could also be titled "the almost-death of the little Civic that preferred winter in Minnesota, thank you very much.")

A few of the signs I'm enjoying most are:

1) For the first time since November we can actually park on the street without blocking a lane of traffic.

2) All but the last little smidge of ice is gone from my driveway now, which means I am no longer covered in strange bruises from banging into my car or the cold hard ground as I walked to and from my car every day.

3) With any luck, we may have already survived the last of the semi-weekly snow/sleet/rain/freezing rain/snow/ice/rain storms of the winter. And I will not have to carry shovel-fulls of WATER down the street to dump into the storm drain (now that we know where it is again) anymore ever again (or, until next winter). Do you know how heavy shove-fulls of water are? REALLY heavy!

My favorite sign of spring, though, is that some of the potholes around town are finally being filled, now that it's less likely that another storm will open them right back up again within a couple days.

This is not a small project. The roads around here look like asphalt swiss cheese after this past winter. Driving down the street requires either really good shock absorbers or very quick reaction time, as most of us swerve like drunks or 14-year-old joyriders to avoid taking years off the lives of our cars and/or the people inside them.

I'm just waiting to be stopped and accused of driving under the influence. And when it happens, and they ask me where the influence comes from, all I will be able to say is "winter".