Fruit Is Food

Fruit Is Food & We’ve Got Hungry Neighbors: Please Map Your Trees!

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Here we go again....

Lithuanian Roma teen. Photo by Andrew Miksys.


What is it with nationalists everywhere and the rabid right that they cannot leave others alone, especially when those others are Roma. Slovakia is the latest location where skin-heads attack Roma. Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Czech Republic all have Roma populations that have been threatened. According to the European Roma Rights Centre, Serbia and Bulgaria have also been in violation of human rights accords regarding treatment of Roma.

Where is the Outrage?!

Another day, another year, another story..check out these links at The New York Times, the BBC, Mail & Guardian. These links take you, not to an article on this topic, but to years of articles! And the horror of these stories is not only in the suffering of the rape victims, females and males alike, but the sometime cover-up/collaboration/turning-a-blind-eye by peacekeepers.....and us. Rape as a weapon of war (this link takes you to pages and pages of stories) knows not boundaries or continent: Sudan, Congo, Bosnia, Colombia, and more.

Hospitals and Elders: not always a happy outcome

An NPR story this morning caught my ear and my heart, as it told of a situation I had experienced with my mother in 2005, which really was the beginning of her end.
These were my comments:

My mother had been inappropriately given a morphine patch for arthritis pain at the University of Chicago Hospitals, which landed her in the hospital with hallucinations and balance issues. While there, delirium ensued & she was tied down, etc. She also kept thinking she was under a railway bridge hearing trains go by. This did not help her evaluation! After hearing about 'sundowners', I spent several nights with her in order to orient her when she woke up. And then I heard the "trains": turns out the helipad for the medical helicopters was right near her room & that is what she was hearing! But I must tell you, the general hospital noise was enough to drive a sane, well person nuts: bells, lights, announcements, visits to get vitals...how anyone was supposed to get well there, was unimaginable. This visit was the beginning of her end. I was totally unimpressed with care for elderly patients: from waiting for hours in the emergency rooms, moved around, beds & chairs not good for stiff, aging bodies, food just left at the bedside for patients who could not lift their hands to their mouth. Don't get me started on my father's (lack of) care. May I never die as an old person in a hospital. Geriatric care has a long way to go.

On a related note:
Several years ago, several researchers completed studies on noise reduction in hospitals: not only did the patients benefit, but the work environment for doctors, nurses, staff improved dramatically and stress levels came down. The cost of implementing these positive changes was negligible.

Ugh!

Yesterday, our house was broken into. Broad daylight. Through a small awning window facing a major street. Small electronics, in and of themselves old and not worth much, but...my daughter's university laptop with her thesis, her data collection from lakes in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, 1000 photos in her camera of the middle of nowhere in Alaska, my husband's work laptop and camera; dvd player; jewelry that my mother had given my daughter before she died that had been her's and her mother's, a little glass box of mine containing broken watches, one of which was a birthday gift from my father to my mother on the first birthday together; a new tv, in it's box still (how convenient). But the sense of violation, people prowling in our drawers, going through the house, watching the house to see when we left..it feels so dirty......

Can/Will Zuma Rise to the Challenge with Integrity or Impunity

Photo by Jennifer Griffiths, Duncan Village near East London, South Africa.

The people are finally speaking and they are not happy: campaign promises, years of waiting for basic shelter, utilities, jobs, while watching the cronies of politicians make millions, buy fancy cars (the number of BMWs and Mercedes on the roads of South Africa is truly astounding), build second homes, etc. In today's Mail&Guardian there are several stories about protests in townships, strikes that are threatening to create chaos for the upcoming World Cup events, threatened strikes in the mines. And, here is a comment from one reader:" Welcome to the South African version of the chaos in Zimbabwe.At least we do not kill foreigners thinking that this is the solution to ending poverty and the incompetence of our leadership. Those who were killed were by ZANU PF goons because the populace knows clearly that villifying foreigners is a red herring. I am sure now there will be crow eating. After all there has been this perception that SA is better. Well the mask is off. Corrupt and inefficient leadership just like any other place. Most South Africans have yet to develop the political maturity to place blame where it should go. Local councillors only to blame, my foot! It is the whole chain of command from the top. Are councillors the ones who have gone on to buy luxury vehicles in the midst of a gripping recession? The problem with our politics is that it has always been regarded as a profession, a way to make money, rather than service to the people. When we can have honest dialogue on this issue, that is when we will start voting with our heads and not from sentiment.
Mukai Sithole on July 24, 2009, 7:55 pm" For more press go the FT of London.
And, it looks as though one of Madiba's grandsons is entering business rather than politics. Perhaps he has realised, at a very young age, what heroes Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale concluded: stay out of politics until the ANC has dug itself into a hole so deep it cannot get out....this seems not very far off.

The Messianic Impulse

Two groups in Seattle with messianic impulses have recently been making their squeaks more noisome of late. They are the Unhappy-with-Kiva subgroup of the Kiva Seattle Team and the Northwest Animal Rights Activists group who are exposing all those who serve foie gras. Now, I am quite content to let any and all of these people believe what they want and express their concerns, just stop trying to convert the rest of us and stop telling us what to do! Rant 1: the U-w-K subgroup, aka the Pissed-off-with-Kiva's-recent-decision group. Kiva Management recently decided to test the waters for making domestic loans to needy entrepreneurs, not just those in developing countries. It is not a requirement that any Kiva members direct their loans domestically, just another option. Well, you would have thought that Kiva was now making loans to Bernie Madoff. According to the U-w-K leader, Tom, there is no poverty in the US like Third World poverty; all Americans are wealthy enough to get along without assistance because there are banks and lending institutions here (anybody been reading about the credit crunch lately?). Now, Tom and this group are not merely content with just continuing to make loans to entrepreneurs in developing world, no, they want us all to send messages to Kiva, have ranting conference calls with Kiva. We, on the Seattle Team, went through two rounds of this. Several of us decided that when Tom would not cease & desist, we would leave the Seattle Team (so we would not have to deal with these rants) and just continue our giving to whomever we choose to through Kiva.
Rant 2: Local NPR affiliate, KUOW, hosted a discussion on a recent edition of Weekday with Steve Sher, regarding foie gras: eating, producing, serving in restaurants. The guests on the show were journalist Mark Caro who has written a book "The Foie Gras Wars"; Jonathan Sundstrom, restaurateur/chef of Lark; and Jenn Kaplan, attorney for Northwest Animal Rights Activists (NARA). Members of the latter group stage demonstrations outside restaurants that serve foie gras. They have arrived every Friday night since January on the sidewalk in front of Lark: consumption of foie gras during this time period has increased 20%,consumption nationally has decreased 20%, largely due to the recession. NARA is also focusing on the plight of chickens in industrial complexes and is planning demonstrations at KFC and McDonald's. Their ultimate goal is to stop the consumption of all animals. I am all for the ethical raising and slaughtering of animals: proper care, clean environments, a decent life for all farm animals. Those who do not wish to eat animals are welcome to eat what they want. What I object to is the self-righteousness of those who tell me what I can and cannot eat. When restaurateurs visit the farmers from whom they purchase their food products and see how the animals are treated, when they care enough about their clients and the earth to strive to only serve organic food, they should not be made to feel like criminals.

Artists...without them our lives would be so dull.....

Preston Singletary. A glass artist, living in Seattle, brings such incredible joy and delight to all those who see his work. The Museum of Glass (MOG) in Tacoma just opened a new exhibit of Singletary's work and it is overwhemingly, achingly beautiful. Singletary has used glass to explore the stories, myths, art, and life of his people. The people of the Northwest tribes have historically been accomplished artists and this foray into a different medium showcases not only Singletary's gifts as an artist but brings to light (literally) the arts of hundreds of years of gifted people. The piece pictured here is on exhibit and to see it is to see the Raven and the Moon in all their mythical glory.

City Fruit has launched!

With a lot of hard work and enthusiasm, a group of us in Seattle has launched City Fruit:
City Fruit is a coalition that promotes the cultivation of fruit in urban landscapes in order to nourish people, build community and protect the climate. City Fruit and our partners help tree owners grow healthy fruit, provide assistance in harvesting and preserving fruit, promote the sharing of extra fruit, and work to protect urban fruit trees.
On our website, we have a link to a fabulous tree mapping project that allows everyone to add fruit trees to our googlemap, creating a virtual City Orchard! Check us out!

So, the Chinese Government is at it, again, squashing ethnic minorities

They just cannot keep their hands off anyone not like them...first Tibetans, then Uighurs (they have a very interesting history. As an aside, one of the tribes they are related to is the Khazars who played a prominent role in Michael Chabon's book Gentlemen of the Road; they are the subject of Milorad Pavic's book Dictionary of the Khazars: a fabulous book with a male and a female version!). The Uighurs who were at Guantanamo preferred staying there to going back to China! The four who were recently taken in my Bermuda were just thrilled with their new home, even if it meant not seeing their families. The current crackdown in Urumqi, Western China (although Uighurs prefer to think of the area as East Turkestan) is just another step to containing dissent. The local Han in Urumqi feel threatened by the Uighurs...and well they might...they were "bussed" in by the Beijing government to out-populate the locals. Same thing was done in the former Soviet Union..and now those Russians stuck in all those places feel very threatened (the 'stans', Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). Read about the very brave Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur businesswoman and political leader as she speaks in support of her people.
Just look at these lovely Uighur girls!

Science, Religion, Fundamentalists

An interesting confluence of news stories were available in print and audio this past week. First, heard on BBC on Monday (by the way, searching for stories on the BBC website in order to document a post like this, is one of the most frustrating endeavours...rarely do search words, checking story times,etc. yield useful results)was a story about a surgeon in Turkey who is one of the leading lights in the Muslim world advocating against Darwin and the theory of evolution. He joins his fundamentalist Christian and fundamentalist Jewish brethren in frothing at the mouth on the subject. He presents a Creationist Science point of view on the biblical/Quranic view of the origin of life and, in the Abrahamic tradition, explains the creation of the earth in six days by doing a Bill Clinton....it all depends on how you define the length of a day.......Fortunately, there are plenty of sane scientists and philosophers in Turkey who are able to debate him on this.

At the other end of the spectrum, was a story in the New York Times about a group of Tibetan monks and nuns who are taking a course to learn the basics of mathematics and science in order to broaden their understanding of the outer world. This is a one month course at Emory University in Atlanta . While many of the participants found some of the material slow going, their life-long habit of focus and meditation allowed them to gain insights very quickly. In advocating for this type of learning, the Dalai Lama said views science and Buddhism as complementary “investigative approaches with the same greater goal, of seeking the truth,” he wrote in “The Universe in a Single Atom,” his book on “how science and spirituality can serve our world.” He stresses that science is especially important for monastics who study the nature of the mind and the relationship between mind and brain." (NYT cited above)

Migration, Displacement, & Climate Change

As the House debates the climate change bill today and the whiners from the rabid-right make fatuous quips about 'cap & tax' and how this bill will result in job losses and the government controlling our lives, let's put this in perspective: real life changes, disruptions, devastation, and human tragedies. An article in the Weekend FT of 20/21 June, the feature article is titled 'The Human Tsunami' by Sam Knight. The sub headline reads:"By 2050, hundreds of millions of people could be forced from their lands by climate change. Where will they go, how will the host communities cope and can we learn from other migrations, past and present?" With immigrants in various potential host countries already under fire, with nationalism on the rise in many parts of the world, this issue has huge implications for world peace, budgets, and immigration policies. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has been doing excellent work in this area and holds very good workshops for those who live in the D.C area. The MPI website is an invaluable information resource and worth visiting, and supporting, on a regular bases.

Difficult reading and thinking

Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink


Like his earlier book, The Reader, the story takes place through several time periods with several subtexts...this book being more complex in that there is also a thorough review of The Odyssey and Odysseus' homecoming. The story is a vehicle for looking at good and evil, choice-making, deconstruction and the law & literature. It is not enjoyable reading because the material is difficult, thought-provoking, and uncomfortable to read/contemplate, bu the story is compelling and tension inducing enough to be a page turner.

More info on reactionary forces in Lithuania

Another article in the Baltic Review about the history of and discrimination against the Roma (did you know that one who studies the Roma is a romologist! and that there are such things as ethnonyms! who knew?) in the Baltic region. Also, an article in IPS on anti-gay legislation in Lithuania (thanks Andrew for these).


Three more photographs from Andrew Miksys' collection called BAXT.

We Should Be Scared, Very, Very Scared

The rumblings from the right are getting bombastic. Since I don't watch rabid-right TV or listen to rabid-right radio, I feel as though I have lulled into a false sense of security since Obama's election. Somehow, reading about it in Europe, as awful as that is, it seemed, well, over there. But the 'over there' is 'over here' and together they make for one living nightmare for many people. So, here is what we have to be very afraid of: Italian nationalists have been rooting out Roma and denying them benefits, education access, jobs. Italian nationalists and French nationalists have been scare-mongering around African immigrants and economic refugees. British nationalists (this is their actual website) won seats in EU elections and want to keep "Britain for the British and those who accept our values". Hungarian nationalists support British nationalists in wanting to keep closed borders and gave them campaign support in the EU elections. Northern Irish young thugs, with nothing better to do now that there is 'peace' in Northern Ireland, attacked Roma in their homes and threatened their lives. Intolerance seems to be rising all over Europe: to quote photographer Andrew Miksys (currently in Lithuania and whose photograph is posted here, with permission) "well, things are just getting worse and worse here too. don't know what it is. seems like lithuanians went from being very open after independence to increasing intolerance. i've kinda lost my patience. people here seem to have no empathy for anyone outside there immediate circle or clan. stupid and quite boring culturally too. been having a lot of conversations about this recently. my friend, dovid katz, at the vilnius yiddish institute wrote this recent editorial for the irish times. And now we come home to Frank Rich's op-ed piece in Sunday's NYT about the "Obama haters".
This photograph, by Andrew Miksys, is titled Reda and Alexander, Lithuania, 2004. It is part of a series on Lithuanian Roma.

World Vision Report - Week of June 13, 2009 - The Good Health Train

World Vision Report - Week of June 13, 2009 - The Good Health Train

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The Duwamish Tribe Just Keeps Getting Screwed

The Duwamish Tribe, the First People of Seattle, have been screwed out of their inheritance as well as subsequent atonements by the Federal Government, through broken treaties, broken promises, and being stabbed in back by other tribes who feel threatened/jealous of their leadership role. Chief Seattle, after whom Seattle is proudly named, had negotiated in faith for the future of his people. At the end of the Clinton Administration, the Duwamish were finally granted Federal recognition, which would allow them to be eligible for benefits from Indian Health Service and other resources allocated to recognised tribes. One of the first acts of the Bush Administration was revoke this decision. The Duwamish legal fund is still in need of help to fight for Federal recognition. If you can help, go to their website, do what you can.

The Ottomans, Eva Zeisel, Chihuly, oh my!

This last weekend's Weekend FT featured three of my favourite topics...each with a new twist. Jancis Robinson, the FT's wine guru, featured the wines and grapes of Turkey. The old Ottoman winemaking traditions suffered (disappeared?) when the Greeks and Armenians fled in the 1920's. Read the article for new information, insights, and maybe travel ideas. Complementing this, is an article by Nicholas Lander on the dining delights of Istanbul.....definitely worth adding to a travel itinerary! Next, in the FT House and Home section, is a feature on antique and modern textiles. Eva Zeisel, of porcelain fame, has a rug featured that is intriguing..this artist is 102 and still creating! And finally, in the section on Collecting, is an article about the emergence of glass as an art, "worthy" of auctions, and not just a craft. Given the prices that Dale Chihuly, chandelier below
and William Morris, reliquary vessel below, fetch in the US, it was shocking the provincial attitude taken by the British collectors...wish I had been there to snap up some real bargains!

Summer Reading

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, getting sucked right in from the beginning. Gaiman has successfully created a great alternative, parallel world. While plot driven, it is also character driven. This book is the first selection of Open Salon. Those wishing to read the book and join the discussion, should read chapters 1-4 and be ready to converse on 10 June. http://open.salon.com/blog/os_book_club....


Readers should consider also reading Summerland by Michael Chabon.

Same old, same old or is this different enough?

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was interesting, but it is not clear to me why it was a Booker winner. The device of the white tiger was insightful and the experience of the protagonist possibly believable, probably more allegorical.