An apartment building after the West, Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion
Trooper D.L. Wilson of the Texas Department of Public Safety estimates that as many as 75 homes were severely damaged and an apartment complex with 50 units was gutted by the blast. He also says 133 patients from a nearby nursing home were evacuated. He could not comment on the extent of any patient injuries, but says all patients have been evacuated from the building. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/04/17/fertilizer-plant-explosion-reported-north-of-waco/
Resources, news sources, etc (I will update this as I get more information):
Disaster Distress Helpline
If you are experiencing signs of distress as a result of a disaster, the SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline provides 24/7, year-round crisis counseling and support. It’s Free. It’s Confidential.
Call 1-800-985-5990
TTY for deaf/hearing impaired: 1-800-846-8517
Text TalkWithUs to 66746
I’ve been taking a mini vacation. A small escape. Holed up in my good friend’s house…dogsitting. Watching cable television. Today has been an endless blur of HGTV, 16 Candles, Breakfast Club, and Say Anything. And lots and lots of commercials.
And doing laundry. And writing in my journal. And dancing. Kind of the usual, only in a different place. With cable television.
I’m trying not to keep track of time too closely, but I have about 3 weeks left before I start my job. So. There’s that. It feels like forever, but there are some pretty major projects I want to complete before I have to start devoting 40 hours of my week to a job. I’m so glad I’ve been able to take some time to be by myself and reflect before I start ramping up.
Some habits I think I’ll keep:
Breakfast on the porch with a book
Blogging every night before bed
Walking, walking, walking every day
Chalk pastels on Sundays
Never Quit
Some habits I still need to establish:
Some sort of cleaning schedule
More regular cooking and baking
Business planning (and execution)
Projects I want to complete:
May Day picnic
Room rearrangement/painting
New HVAC unit
Clean out garage/yard sale
(That’s a lot…I’m hoping I don’t have to pare down, but if I do…the garage cleaning can wait.)
I’d also really like to shake the blues that tug away in moments of happiness. Shoo, blues!
Tree Shadows
Did you know there is a vacuum for ear cleaning? The WaxVac? Weird shit, man.
Would be the soundtrack for the movie that has been this evening. After a perfect day. I mean, absolutely perfect. Weather, pacing, company…autonomy. Everything falling into place even including the respite from routine that is the home of a friend I am dogsitting for. With cable television. No children. No other roommates. NO MESS. And accoutrements of relaxationness. It’s perfect. I was thinking about a mama retreat, but this is enough mama retreat for me. And totally free! So, yay.
I mean…what I was going to say is you can picture your main character screwing up her face over multiple chalk drawings of ravens. Trying to correct the eyes…or the beak…or the feathers. Or just the whole thing. chalk dust everywhere. Until finally She gives up on the ravens entirely and just plays. with. chalk.
A note to you: You are you. You are not the situation you are temporarily occupying. I love you for you. Not for what I can, nor in spite of what I cannot, “get” from you. ❤ Me
Fresh Bread.
Nothing much happened today, really.
There was breakfast and reading.
Oatmeal and Wendell Berry
And a long walk through the neighborhood, complete with horses at the school.
Horses in the schoolyard, part 1
Horses in the schoolyard, part 2
Vultures in the road
Vultures in the road
Interesting shadows.
Interesting Shadows
And, of course, pomegranates.
Pomegranates
I visited with a Score mentor about Education Never Ends. Business plan is the next step.
Met up with some superheroes at City Hall who were fighting to keep our elected representatives from transferring power over our publicly-owned utility to an unelected independent board…and also feeding people.
Fight the power, after eating a well-balanced and nutritious meal!
And came home to my messy house. I’m thinking I might at least try to clean the kitchen tomorrow. I’m also thinking my room needs some work – particularly if I’m going to be working from it. No reason why I can’t rearrange things so I have a window next to my desk. And a freaking treadmill.
I have a lot on my mind – most of which I probably won’t be able to talk about for a long time. It’s still sorting itself all out up there.
***
Some links for you:
“Exxon is and will always be a bully,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International. “Instead of engaging their critics appropriately, Exxon uses its billions to hire high-priced lawyers to make scary-sounding but unsupported legal claims to suppress criticism. It’s a window into how they have preserved billions in taxpayer handouts for their industry for so many years.”
This is the second time Exxon has bullied this advertisement off the air. In February, Exxon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Comcast only hours before scheduled airings during State of the Union news coverage.
The resolution by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which is a 1934 Indian Reorganization Act government, explicitly supports the traditional Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council’s resolution approved unanimously on Feb. 18, 2012. The earlier resolution states: “The Great Sioux Nation hereby directs President Barack Obama and the United States Congress to honor the promises of the United States made through the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties by prohibiting the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline and any future projects from entering and destroying our land without our consent.”
The traditional leaders’ resolution, argues against the dilbit pipeline on the grounds of international law, citing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/009206.asp
Meanwhile, the entire community of Mayflower, AR has been radicalized:
At this early stage of the game, real answers to what’s going on in Mayflower would be hard to come by, even if a mega-corporation wasn’t on the ground in full damage control mode, and local and county officials hadn’t largely ceded jurisdiction to them, with workers and Faulkner County deputies barring the public and media from the scene. The emerging picture, though — a picture that includes wildlife coated in oil, devastated ecosystems in ExxonMobil’s “restricted areas,” residents who say they are sick, and the still-ticking time bomb on the shores of Central Arkansas’s primary water source, Lake Maumelle, where the Pegasus Pipeline comes within 600 feet of the shoreline — might be even uglier than a neighborhood coated in crude. http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/will-mayflower-ever-be-the-same-after-the-exxon-spill/Content?oid=2797633&showFullText=true
Here’s the lesson I keep relearning: We don’t control what other people think of us. Even if they are really, really wrong. Even if what they think of us is hurtful to them. Even if I fully accept another person’s shortcomings and difficulties – that’s no guarantee they will accept mine.
But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t accept other people…it just means everyone has their limits.
Love openly. Err on the side of kindness. It really fucking hurts to trust. I know. But trust anyway. Stay in touch with loved ones. Pay attention. STOP WORRYING. It really is true that within the margin of error and certain parameters, everything really does turn out ok. But don’t forget those who dwell outside of those parameters for whom things do not turn out ok. When taking risks, consider them, as well as yourself. Don’t confuse luck for skill. Don’t mistake circumstance for predestiny. Give more credit than you accept. Worry is negative goal setting. DON’T GET INVOLVED IN RELATIONSHIPS UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND FULLY WHAT YOU ARE GETTING YOURSELF INTO. It’s not selfish to conserve your own energy, provided you don’t make promises you can’t keep while preserving that energy. Be nice to your mama.
Dude. That’s good advice.
Good energy (ar ar. SO sorry about that! I didn’t even realize that was there until I proofread, and I just can’t bear to remove it.) (By the way, The Tao of C told a pun-joke today that went like: If you don’t pet this kitty, it will be a cat-astrophe! Like Apocalypse Meow!” hahaha!) in the room today as I stood with representatives from a broad coalition of environmental, economic, and social justice groups in objection to the changes the Austin City Council proposes to make to Austin Energy. Namely, putting control of our public utility, as well as its assets, in the hands of an unelected board. In other words, transferring the LITERAL power out of the hands of the people. I was honored to stand among such a dedicated and committed group of people. I think the next few months are going to be very interesting in my life. I have a lot to learn.
City Council meeting this Thursday should be interesting. It’s estimated that the issue will come before the council between 5 and 7 PM, but that time is not set in stone. Childcare and food will be provided, for those who wish to join us (I say us, but I might have to be late) in opposing this change vocally and in numbers.
Clean Energy For Austin
On the way to that press conference, I ran into a client of the program I once ran. We stopped to smell flowers, and I convinced her to come to the press conference and hold a sign.
PJ Sniffing flowers.
Got my new glasses.
Please ignore my messy hair!
Got some hair dye. Had a good dinner…
Peanut tofu over a bed of sauteed collard greens
I’m writing perfect poetry
In my mind and disappears like smoke
and Tiny bursting dynamites of hope.
Tomorrow is jury duty and hair dying. ❤
***
I want you to think about this:
Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton ordered the school — with a student population of 1,776 — on “lock down,” kicking off the first “drug sweep” in the school’s four-year history. According to Hamilton, “lock down” is a state in which, “everybody is locked in the room they are in, and nobody leaves — nobody leaves the school, nobody comes into the school.”
“Everybody is locked in, and then they bring the dogs in, and they are teamed with an administrator and go in and out of classrooms. They go to a classroom and they have the kids come out and line up against a wall. The dog goes in and they close the door behind, and then the dog does its thing, and if it gets a hit, it sits on a bag and won’t move.”
While such “drug sweeps” have become a routine matter in many of the nation’s schools, along with the use of metal detectors and zero-tolerance policies, one feature of this raid was unusual. According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four “law enforcement agencies” took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
It is the involvement of CCA — the nation’s largest private, for-profit prison corporation — that causes this high school “drug sweep” to stand out as unusual; CCA is not, despite CGPD’s evident opinion to the contrary, a law enforcement agency.
“To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the ‘schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen,” said Caroline Isaacs, program director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker social justice organization that advocates for criminal justice reform.
This protest comes on the heels of TWAC, a weeklong gathering of almost 100 female and transgender activists to share skills and campaign information, and organize opposition to the prison-industrial complex. Prisons and immigrant detention centers, GEO’s primary investments, target poor people, people of color, and transgender individuals. As female and transgender organizers, we are more vulnerable to violence within these institutions. GEO has a clear record of human rights abuses within its facilities. https://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/twac-storms-prison-industry-giant-geo-group-hq-in-boca-raton/
A Tar Sands Blockader disrupted the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio this afternoon during the PGA golf tournament. Douglas Fahlbusch was a standard bearer for the event and used the opportunity to bring attention toManchester, a low income, predominately Latin@ community in Houston’s toxic East End where Valero operates a refinery that consistently violates EPA and TCEQ (Texas Commission for Environmental Quality) laws and regulations.
Once the tournament reached the 18th hole, Doug changed the sign, ordinarily used to display the players’ names and scores, to read “TAR SANDS SPILL. VALERO KILLS. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” He refused to leave the green and was dragged the entire way off the premises by police.
“Business as usual is over, between the BP spill, the current Arkansas spill, and daily life in Manchester,” Fahlbusch said. “Why won’t Valero tell the Manchester people what it is they are breathing every day?” http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/20th-action/
As is this:
ALLEN, OK – Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Oklahoma grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery effectively halting construction on TransCanada’s Keystone XL toxic tar sands pipeline. This action comes in the wake of the disastrous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower Arkansas, where an estimated 80,000 gallons of tar sands spilled into a residential neighborhood and local waterways.
Using a bike-lock Zorn has attached her neck directly to a massive earth-mover, known as an excavator, which has brought construction of Keystone XL to a stop. Zorn is the second Oklahoma grandmother this year risking arrest to stop construction of the pipeline, and her protest is the third in a series of ongoing civil disobedience actions led by the Oklahoma-based coalition of organizations, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance. http://gptarsandsresistance.org/2013/04/09/3rd-action/
Which explains the praise for the pipeline organizers in this article (complete with throwdown in comments):
The movement to stop the Keystone XL pipeline has gone far beyond what anybody at TransCanada ever could have envisioned when it was first proposed. At Platts’ The Barrel talk at the recent AFPM meeting in San Antonio, a panel of experts all had different views on whether the line would be approved or rejected in the coming months. Ask 10 people in the oil business and you’ll get 10 opinions. (Given the recent ExxonMobil spill in Arkansas, those 10 opinions today might be different than they would have been a week ago.)
But if the protesters lose, and Keystone XL gets an Obama administration OK, it certainly isn’t for lack of trying or organization. They’re highly organized, and they know exactly what they’re doing. http://blogs.platts.com/2013/04/07/golf-protest/
The master plan being: Don’t worry. Don’t waste your time. And I didn’t.
Instead, I made a conscious effort to relax with breakfast and reading on the porch every day.
Today’s reading material
And long walks – taking time to witness the life cycle of a pomegranate
Life Cycle of a Pomegranate, Pt. 1
Life Cycle of a Pomegranate, Pt. 2
And irony.
Sanctuary?
And Texas.
We Don’t Dial 911
And then, just as I was heading out the door for a meeting, the phone rang. It was The Job. I mean, not THE JOB OF A LIFETIME, but the job I’d been hoping for. Because it pays enough, and demands little, and has growth potential…if that’s what I want to do. And, frankly, I’ve had jobtopia. It was quite a coup there for a good run. I feel like I’ve had excellent job karma thus far, and I can find a way to enjoy just about any kind of work.
But it sure is nice to have it. Guaranteed. With a month to relax and REALLY enjoy before the training begins.
*Bliss*
I think I’ve done it. I think I’ve pulled off another coup.
Now I can focus on art, activism, and Education Never Ends. And maybe a nice mama retreat road trip for good measure, while I have the time.
And breathing. And walking. And being mindful of the life cycle of the pomegranate.
And listening to lots and lots of Nick Cave. Particularly Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus, like these gems:
And now…the news:
Haven’t gathered many links today, but I have some saved up…
Remember the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a circumvention of government. Its draft statement is not a product of the deliberation of U.S. legislators or apparently legislators in other countries, but of the Obama administration and representatives of deliberating nations and roughly 600 corporations. The talks are held multiple times a year and always in secrecy. Helicopters hover overhead while paramilitary teams patrol the conference grounds and a near-total media blackout ensures little is learned by anyone outside. As U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, the chair of the congressional committee that is supposed to have jurisdiction over the TPP, said in a statement to Congress:
“The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PhaRMA, Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement.”
If ratified, what would the agreement do? Much in the favor of big business. Signatory nations, including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam would agree to give “multinational corporations unprecedented rights to demand taxpayer compensation for policies they think will undermine their expected future profits straight from the treasuries of participating nations,” journalist Nile Bowie explains in CounterPunch. “It would push the agenda of Big PhaRMA in the developing world to impose longer monopoly controls on drugs, drastically limiting access to affordable generic medications that people depend on. The TPP would undermine food safety by limiting labeling and forcing countries like the United States to import food that fails to meet its national safety standards, in addition to banning Buy America or Buy Local preferences.” http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_trans-pacific_partnership_more_power_for_the_global_on_percent_20130405/
TPP has been criticised for being negotiated in secret with no drafts of the text being released to the public. In August last year, the Australian Labor Government and Opposition joined forces in parliament to vote down a motion by two Greens senators to disclose the full draft text.
White people who are confronted with their white privilege and the white supremacist acts they perpetuate have been known to cry, “You’re being a reverse-racist!” That is completely true: people of color have the power and control to create, perpetuate, and maintain brutal systematic reverse-racism that oppresses white people every day. As such, we have created this handy list on how to continue this oppression. http://blackgirldangerous.org/new-blog/2012/11/27/9csnr2cmsrexpoxro1f16csj18zgcy
Though they didn’t need help, I was thankful for the excuse to make it out to the festival, and enjoyed some yummy food.
Chole Samosa
Accompanied a friend to The Great Outdoors, where we gawked at greenhouse flowers before he bought bags of soil for his garden.
Pitcher Plant
Pitcher Plant 2
Bougainvillea galore!
Nerded out at the opening of the Hats off to Dr. Seuss exhibition with one of my very favorite superheroes…followed by dinner and giggles at surreal-0-vision.
I think this one was called “Ejecting a Surly Cat.”
Sunday was about much needed solitude.
Abundance
Manifesting the inspiration from the preceding day into art.
Yertle the Tortuga, Pt. 1
They Obeyed
Contemplating…
Journaling…
Maintaining…
When I was working, this time of night on a Sunday was a time of mourning for the lost weekend hours. Now, I celebrate the time spent in pursuit of more esoteric goals. I am memorizing the contours of a simpler life-measuring the hours of the days and comparing them to the important things that need to fit within them. I am taking time to listen to birdsong and track the daily growth of the leaves on trees. I am paying close attention to my kinder instincts and (internally, silently) admonishing those who would wish me to be more cruel because that is what they would do. I am appreciating the fact that my child quotes Neitzsche when confronted with my angst (specifically, though paraphrased: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”)
I am listening to Camper Van Beethoven, and welcoming spring.
❤
And now…the news:
Troubling reports continue to come in from the Pegasus Tarsands Pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas about the apparent control of the proverbial chicken coop by the foxes:
On Friday morning, Inside Climate Newsreported that an Exxon spokesperson told reporter Lisa Song that she could be “arrested for criminal trespass” when she went to the command center to try to find representatives from the EPA and the Department of Transportation. On Friday afternoon, I spoke to the news director from the local NPR affiliate who said he, too, had been threatened with arrest while trying to cover the spill. http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/04/reporters-say-exxon-impeding-spill-coverage-arkansas
Thankfully, the residents of Mayflower are fighting back:
On Friday, homeowners filed a civil lawsuit against Exxon in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Arkansas Western Division. In the class action suit, homeowners said the pipeline was unsafe and its rupture hurt property values. http://thecabin.net/latest-news/2013-04-06-1#.UWJPgpPvuSr
We have reports that because Exxon had already partially destroyed this wetland, they pumped diluted bitumen spilled in other areas here to get it all in one place and keep it out of sight of the media. We went in anyway.
This is how we comfort ourselves when we feel helpless:
And I did a little studying up on the history of May Day, in preparation for the planning of picnic/potluckness:
Originally a pagan holiday, the roots of the modern May Day bank holiday are in the fight for the eight-hour working day in Chicago in 1886, and the subsequent execution of innocent anarchist workers.
In 1887, four Chicago anarchists were executed; a fifth cheated the hangman by killing himself in prison. Three more were to spend 6 years in prison until pardoned by Governor Altgeld who said the trial that convicted them was characterised by “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge”. The state had, in the words of the prosecution put “Anarchy is on trial” and hoped their deaths would also be the death of the anarchist idea. http://libcom.org/history/1886-haymarket-martyrs-mayday
The farmers, workers, and child-bearers (laborers) of the Middle Ages had hundreds of holy days which preserved the May Green, despite the attack on peasants and witches. Despite the complexities, whether May Day was observed by sacred or profane ritual, by pagan or Christian, by magic or not, by straights or gays, by gentle or calloused hands, it was always a celebration of all that is free and life-giving in the world. That is the Green side of the story. Whatever else it was, it was not a time to work.
I’m not usually the kind of person who passes along petitions to sign, because I generally feel like others already have that covered. (I’ll get the same petition by 9 or 10 of my friends, so I assume everyone else does, too.) However, I think this particular campaign is worth the risk of duplication:
The State Department’s official public comment period on Keystone XL Pipeline is now open — and it’s a crucial opportunity for us to flood them with comments. We’ll take your comments and deliver them directly and immediately to the the State Department. http://act.350.org/letter/a_million_strong_against_keystone
The award for the surrealiest headline of a lifetime goes to:
But, you know…they’re not trying to block media coverage or anything. News helicopters can just CLEAR IT WITH EXXON first and they should be fine.
FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford confirms that news media helicopters can now once again fly over the site of the Mayflower oil spill. Lunsford says if news helicopters want to fly over the site, however, they will need to call ahead of time and clear it with Tom Suhrhoff of ExxonMobil. http://www.ualrpublicradio.org/post/media-faces-barriers-covering-arkansas-oil-spill
At this point, I’m seriously flipping through all of the links that I thought I might want to share today, but they’re all really fucking depressing. hahaha. In thinking about something that we might actually be able to DO about all of this…I’m hoping we can at least get a couple of people from environmental groups around town and maybe some Tarsands Blockade folks to do some teach-ins on Mayday to give people who seem alarmed by all of the spills some ideas for what they can do about it.
That’s all I got. Tomorrow will certainly end more pleasantly.
Today marks the 4th week-a-versary of my layoff. I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long. The time has FLOWN by. And while I’m certain that I’m jinxing myself by saying this…I really am enjoying unemployment.
I keep telling my kids “I’ve been working since I was 16 years old. It’s nice to have a break. Hopefully it will be short, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.”
I still had some residual heartbreak. What can I say? I’m somewhat of a hopeless romantic. More like a pitiful romantic. Pathetic romantic.
So I had this conversation with my older son, who I’ll call “Buddha the Grouch” (I’ve decided the younger son is The Tao of C.)
Me: maybe I need to be more angry. Maybe then I would feel less sad. Buddha the Grouch: you can’t use anger to mask your sadness. Me. Maybe I’m using sadness to mask my anger! Buddha the Grouch: maybe you should just not feel any fucking emotions. They are dumb.
He makes me laugh.
I also had breakfast with our evil kitten, who is quickly becoming a cat.
(Evil because she has a habit of biting – specifically, she has a habit of laying – enticingly adorably – splayed out in the middle of any given floor, then viciously attacking anyone who dares fall into the trap of cute that she has set.)
I did a fair amount of reading today – photographing important sections for later inspiration.
They force me to think about the day and remember what really happened
Self-Revelations
Imagining Emily Dickinson on a Wordy Day
Making money is, on its own terms, totally meaningless
The lord who exploited them was better than the uncertainty of no lord at all
The world is being destroyed by popular demand.
Walked to Pinballz with a friend and played mopped the floor with his ass at some pinball. Wrote in my journal. Read some more.
Creature From the Black Lagoon
Kiss
Hula Hula
Hung laundry
in
the Magic Hour
of the Now Sun.
Had an awesome phone chat with one of my favorite people in the entire world, who helped me pull my ass out of my head and gave me some great advice.
And rejoiced in the fact that it’s still footie pajama weather. In April. In Austin. Celebrating with a footie pajama dance party.
Not an entirely bad way to mark a one-month anniversary.
***
And now…the news:
I’m a Full-Blown Commoner. 🙂 Are you a commoner? Take the quiz to find out: http://bit.ly/10T6DqJ
“Why do I raise my children this way? Because I want them to think for themselves, to have and express their own opinions. Just like, say, a New York Times columnist”
“After a public pressure campaign through the Eviction Free Zone of Occupy Homes MN, Gayle Lindsey, a nursing assistant and grandmother in South Minneapolis, who was facing imminent eviction, has won a modification of her mortgage from M&T Bank. Her victory marks the seventh for Occupy Homes MN and the first in the Eviction Free Zone, a project that brings neighbors in the Central and Powderhornneighborhoods together to refuse to leave their homes without a fair negotiation.”
“The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt,” wrote Sylvia Plath in her journal. And she couldn’t have been more accurate. Self-doubt can persuade us to stop creating or keep us from sending our work out into the world. It can be so influential that it colors how we see ourselves, ensuring we don’t pick up a pen, paintbrush, camera, or other tool for decades.
