Category: activism

hungry

I’ve been thinking about food these days. Look at me with my bagel here, and my veggies there. And not to mention the stash of chocolate, what with trick-or-treating almost at my doorstep.

Today was a day of eating and running, or running and not eating. I had to go into Boston, and I try to take the train in when I can. There’s a 9:00 train I can catch if I head to the station by 8:30. But what this usually means is that, once I get Phoebe bundled off to daycare, I can barely get myself together in time to, for example, eat breakfast. So since I didn’t have a scheduled meeting till later in the afternoon, I decided to catch a later train. To give myself time to for breakfast, for one thing. Most important meal of the day, and all that. I tend to be hungry in the morning, and if I don’t eat, I get cranky and less than fully functional. So I had my breakfast before leaving home.

It was a bit of a crazy day for public transportation in Boston today. Unbeknownst to me, there was a freakin’ parade scheduled, so I shared my commute in with a trainload of exhuberant teens in party mode.

I figured that by 5:30 or so, when I was heading back towards home, the post-parade chaos would have cleared up. Not quite. As I headed to the train station, I realized I was getting hungry. I thought I’d stop in at the convenience store to get a snack, since I wouldn’t be home till after 7:00. But the train station was mobbed. They had passengers waiting for trains corraled off into lines. I didn’t want to risk being bumped to a later train, so I joined the pen for my train, and missed my window of time to grab something to eat.

It was a long ride home. The train wasn’t as crowded as I’d feared, and I got to sit down. I did a bit of work, but found it hard to concentrate. For one thing, my rumbling stomach kept interrupting my thoughts. It’s hard to focus when you’re hungry.

Of course, my hunger was only temporary. I got to go home, and get something to eat.

Not only did I get to eat, I got to eat foods that I chose. I make efforts to eat well, to eat high quality whole-grain foods, and lots of fruits and vegetables. I find that when I eat well, eat healthily, I feel better. I have more energy, stay healthier, sleep better, work better.

What I find unsettling is that there are so many for whom real hunger is a daily obstacle, and poor nutrition is a regular detractor from health and productivity. Even in the US, where food is plentiful for so many. How can it be that in the same country, where millions are “watching what they eat” in order to lose weight, that others still struggle to even get adequate quantities of food? Restaurants serve up obscenely large servings of food, and we eat more than we should or want, and often waste the rest. Some of us have too much food, while others of us can’t get what we need. Eating healthy foods, especially fresh produce, costs money. And takes time.

Jen at One Plus Two wrote a compelling post reminding us that among those who aren’t getting adequate healthy food are lots of children. 13 million children…in the US alone.

Poor nutrition leads to poor health, poor performance in school, and even impaired cognitive development.

Recent research provides compelling evidence that undernutrition — even in its “milder” forms — during any period of childhood can have detrimental effects on the cognitive development of children and their later productivity as adults. In ways not previously known, undernutrition impacts the behavior of children, their school performance, and their overall cognitive development. These findings are extremely sobering in light of the existence of hunger among millions of American children.

Poor nutrition is one of the many ways that those who live in poverty are denied the opportunities to get out of poverty.

On the bright side, there are things we can do.

We can let our politicians know we find the current state of affairs unacceptable. We can give to food banks. There are organizations who are active in fighting hunger, and advocating changes that will prevent hunger. You can learn more about hunger, and hunger in the US and around the world, from a variety of groups, such as Second Harvest. In Massachusetts, there is Project Bread, a group that organizes an annual Walk for Hunger. (Don’t worry, though. The walk is not actually in support of hunger, but in support of efforts to eradicate hunger.)

this list goes up to 11

action_125x125.jpgToday has been declared Blog Action Day, an event in which bloggers around the world can participate in writing about a common cause on a common day. This is the inaugural year of the event, and the cause that has been chosen is to tackle issues relating to the environment. I feel strongly about the environment. It must be stopped! Down with the environment!

No, wait. I’m all for the environment. I was confused. I must have been thinking about uncomfortable shoes. Can’t stand ’em. Or overcooked pasta. Yick. That just shouldn’t even be legal.

Where was I? Oh, right. The environment. I should write about how we, as a society, can make progress in protecting the environment. But I’m afraid I don’t have time for that. I have a work deadline looming, and I shouldn’t be blogging at all. So I must be quick, quick. Like a bunny. In a threatened ecosystem. So I give you a list.

Here is list of things that I should be able to manage to improve my own impact on the environment, improve my knowledge of the issues, and to help generally support environmental causes. What’s more, I will set myself a timeline to accomplish these things. I plan to do these things by the end of the year. There are 11 full weeks of 2007 left, so 11 seemed like a good number to aim for.

11 planet-friendly resolutions for (the rest of) 2007

  1. cancel 10 catalogs or other junk mail items
  2. explore additional local food options, such as for dairy and eggs
  3. block drafts in windows in doors to reduce heat loss
  4. give holiday gifts that minimize shipping and packaging
  5. watch Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (I’m sorry to say I haven’t yet seen it)
  6. write at least one letter (or email) to a company or politician about some action
  7. Change our electricity options to include use of renewable resources
  8. Give support to an environmental action group (whether with money or by way of petitions)
  9. line-dry 1 load of laundry a week
  10. reduce my usage of disposable products (I may try keeping a cloth handkerchief in my pocket instead of a tissue. At least if I leave it in my pocket when I wash my pants, it won’t dissolve and decorate the rest of the load.)
  11. Cook my pasta al dente. This will both fight the evils overcooked pasta and reduce the time I have my stove on. (Okay, you caught me. I ran out of time, and don’t have a good 11th item in mind. But if I manage all 10 of the above items, I think I can feel like I’ve made some personal progress.)

refueling my optimism

I have to say, yesterday’s news made me happy. I believe I have already expressed my enthusiasm for Al Gore. So it should come as no surpise that I was happy to hear that he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Happy may even be a bit mild. I actually got goosebumps, and got choked up while reading a news stories about the award.¹ (Tears don’t come too easily for me these days, either.) I felt moved by the acknowledgment of the impact that climate change can have on human populations. I felt pleased that scientists are being honored for their research into climate change.

I don’t have time to write more tonight, but I wanted to share my excitement about this news.

And speaking of reading that gets my idealism revved up, the September Just Posts went up earlier in the week. This month’s round-up of posts on topics of activism is the biggest yet, and are once more hosted at One Plus Two, Under the Mad Hat, Creative Mother Thinking, and Truth Cycles. Have a look!

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¹ I can’t find an article I thought I read from the New York Times. The NYT article I found from later yesterday had a very different tone. The one I remember was more in line with this AP article.

a post for Burma

Free Burma!

Today, October 4th, is International Bloggers’ Day for Burma.

While I still know quite little about the country of Burma (Myanmar), what I have learned recently of the events there has both moved and shocked me. I am appalled by the violence committed against the Buddhist monks and other peaceful protesters by the military regime. At the same time, I am inspired by their bravery, and that of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

She has called on people around the world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”

To learn more about what is going on in Burma, and what you can do, I recommend the following resources:

just posts (and just posted)

The August Just Posts are up and strong. In case you don’t know them, they are a collection of posts from around the blogosphere where people have written on topics of social justice and all types of activism. Not only are these posts about activism, they are activism. And what’s cool is that you can exercise your own activist muscles, too. Just by clicking on the links.

The posts are on a wide range of topics: race and racism, gender, healthcare, poverty, environmental issues, and more… Have a look. Just visit any one of these folks listed below, now representing 3 continents, for a list of links.

jen   mad   hel   susanne

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I usually have to work myself up to writing about topics of activism. Even though they are topics that I think about often. I like to write fun stuff. I try to entertain. So it almost feels like an intrusion when I write about a serious topic. It’s particularly hard for me to write about controversial topics. I am a person with strong opinions, but a quiet voice. I fear confrontation, I fear conflict. So the post I just put up makes me feel vulnerable. I just posted something both personal and political, and I didn’t even have my editor look at it first. At the same time that I want people to read what I wrote, I want it to be buried to save me the risk of attack. It’s silly, I know. I’m working on building up that spine. Are there exercises you can do for that?

some of my best friends are Republican

It’s true, you know. Even though I myself am a granola-eating, tree-hugging bleeding-heart liberal.

I like to say this is line as a bit of joke. Some of my best friends are Republican.

It reminds me that much as I try to fight bigotry, I still am susceptible myself. I have my own prejudices. Perhaps I nurture my bigotry against conservatives. But there are other subtle prejudices are more disturbing when I become aware of them, as they are bigotries that I actively fight. Religious intolerance. Racism. Classism. Even sexism. It’s good to remind myself that I am still a work in progress.

I also like to say it because it’s true. Some of my best friends are Republican. And I’m actually proud of this. Much as I disagree with their political views, these friendships are important to me. Both because I care about the individuals, and because I think it is productive to find the middle ground. And while the ground I’d like to reach eventually is far left of the middle, I can’t imagine us jumping right over as a society. I think we’ll get there by persistence and by hard work in lots of arenas. I think that part of the process is to keep the discourse productive, as it makes it easier for us to recognize the common ground.

Extremists on both ends of the spectrum are guilty of distorting the discourse. There is a tendency to over-generalize, throw blame, call names. To call all those on the other side of the fence stupid. Insane. Barbaric. Evil, even. Hell, I know I’m guilty of mucking things up when I get angry. (And there is a lot that I’m angry about.)

One of my closest friends is a conservative Republican. We’ve now been friends for about 20 years, startling as that seems to me. Even early in our friendship, back in high school before either of us was particularly interested in politics, we realized that we landed squarely on opposite sides of the political spectrum. The only times we fought were about political subjects. Education. Welfare. Taxes. Class. The death penalty. So-called family values. We discovered that political topics had to stay off limits if we were going to stay friends.

Over the years, we’ve talked about many things that brush up against the more directly political topics. Likewise with other friends and family members who lean far rightward into the spectrum.

I’ve learned that a person who can hold opposite political views, who would vote so differently from me, can also have many qualities that I value and respect. I’ve noted a high level tolerance and acceptance on a personal level, loyalty, kindness, and a complete lack of malice, even while supporting policies that I consider inhumane.

Being close friends with people with quite different political views has helped me to learn tolerance and a better understanding of those viewpoints. I’ve come to believe that our core values are not always so different, but that sometimes we differ in how we define them. For example, family is important to me. But my definition of family is perhaps only broader and more flexible than the traditional middle class American one.

And perhaps my friendship has also broadened the perspectives of my more conservative friends, and nourished their own tolerance. I know that at the very least they know that it is possible to sit down at the dinner table, share a laugh, and have a friendly conversation with someone whose political views are as unabashedly liberal commie pinko as mine.

big fears and small, hopeful faces

There was a New York Times article I read a couple of weeks ago that has left me thinking. It describes the some of the education situation in Afghanistan, and the attack on schools by Taliban rebels, who have protested the education of girls. Recently, there have been incidents of attacks on the students themselves, including brutal shootings of young girls leaving schoolgrounds.

The article was accompanied by a slideshow, containing beautiful photographs of some Afghan schools, and of the people affected by the attacks on the schools. We see the mourning family of a 13-year-old girl who was shot down and killed outside of her school, and students and teachers at work in tents being used as schoolrooms.

One image in particular gripped me. It shows a classroom, a tent actually, where young girls are standing or sitting among rows of tables, holding textbooks. They wear black and white, and most wear white scarves over their hair. The girl at the center of the image is holding out her book, and looking up eagerly at an adult that is mostly out of frame, a teacher, most likely. The girl’s eyes glint brightly and her mouth curves in a small smile. Another girl’s scarf has fallen to her shoulders, and she looks off to the side, her attention apparently diverted from the book activity. Other faces look down at books, or up at the teacher. Some look confident, some look a bit more uncertain. Some look focused on their books, and some a bit distracted by other things going on in the room. I imagine that they are all a bit exicited to have the photographer in the classroom with them. All of their small beautiful faces look eager, engaged. They look, more than anything, just like children. In spite of the setting. In spite of their formal-looking style of dress. And most amazingly, in spite of the dangers they face.

In their faces I see myself as a girl, and my own eagerness for learning. I see my daughter’s face, and the future that education will bring her. I see my sister’s face, my mother’s face, my friends’ faces, and the faces of all the women I know, who were once young girls, and who have benifitted from an education that we so easily take for granted.

My heart sings for those young girls at the same time as I feel the grip of fear for their very lives. Their world is being expanded, their minds enriched, the possibilities of their future are multiplying.

I am horrified that children are paying such a high price for their education. I’m appalled and deeply saddened. I can barely imagine the choices that these children and their parents must face.

At the same time, the photo gives me some hope. The number of students attending schools, both boys and girls, is increasing in the years since the end of the Taliban’s government. Educators and parents in Afghanistan, and organizations around the world, are fighting to make schooling possible for these children.

For more information on the education crisis in Afghanistan, and the emergency situation for Afghani children in general, see the UNICEF information pages for Afghanistan. There are also many other resources on the web, such as this publication of Human Rights Watch.

the eggplant strikes back: the vegesaga continues

This is week 8 of my CSA adventure.

    2 pounds of beets
    1 pound of carrots (donated from another farm, as the carrot crop failed at the farm I go to)
    1 pound of cucumbers
    a bunch of onions
    a pint of pick-your-own peas (though I just picked a half pint, as it was raining, and the pickin’s were looking slim)
    1 small japanese eggplant (I traded in my bunch of onions for a second eggplant.)
    1 small summer squash or pepper (I chose an eight ball zucchini)
    1 bunch or chard or kale
    1 sprig of thyme or marjoram
    1 bunch of basil
    1 ping pong ball-sized tomato

I’m feeling a bit down on this veggie business just now. I sent out an email to a bunch of local friends inviting them to come in small groups, and giving a choice of a dozen or so dates. It turns out that many of them want to come and/or are only available on August 2nd, and no one is available this week. It will be fun to have the bunch of folks, though I hadn’t intended to throw a party 2 days before our big trip. However, I actually won’t have enough vegetables to feed them all. I can save the beets and carrots from this week, but most of the vegetables don’t really last from one week to the next. And the point was to feed people farm-fresh vegetables, not ones that were a week or more old.

So I had a thought. Since I’ll be going away for 2 weeks, I thought perhaps I could see if I could pick up 2 shares worth next week. I know that lots of people go away during the summer, and there always seem to be a lot of vegetables at the end of the night when I arrive at the tail end of the pick-up. So, I asked the farmer. I didn’t know what she’d say, and knew that “no” was definitely a possible answer. I was prepared for the “no” answer.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how irritated I would be by that answer.

Her first answer was, “no, it’s not possible, because of the way the vegetables grow.” When I mentioned that other people might also be going away at various times over the summer and might want to switch a week, she said, “Oh, I see. But it would be too hard for me to keep track.” What I find irritating is that I could think of several ways off the top of my head that it would be feasible for people to arrange these things without it taking up much of her time. She writes in her emailed newsletters that she wants to encourage a sense of community, but all communication between members of this “community” is filtered through her. If there were even some sort of bulletin board, or virtual bulletin board, I could post a request that someone swap a week’s pick-up with me, and then some other member and I could communicate directly. But the answer was “no, I can’t keep track.” (Well, when I explained about the horde of people coming for dinner next week, she did say I could email her and that she’d consider if she learned of someone planning to forfeit their share for the week. But it doesn’t seem too likely this will work out, and I will feel like I’ve put her out.)

And then I’ve realized that part of my irritation was not just about her answer. It’s her farm, her business, so her decision. She needs to decide what works for her. But the trouble is, there have been a number of things that haven’t worked for me as well as I’d hoped.

One main issue is that I hadn’t realized how little of the share would actually be food that Phoebe will eat. (We’ve tried, but she’s become pickier.) There have been greens and onions and kohlrabi, radishes and herbs, garlic and bok choi. And then there was all the lettuce. (Do all the other members really not find 5 heads of lettuce a week to be excessive?) Phoebe won’t eat lettuce, and I can’t even freeze it for later. Here I’ve been collecting more vegetables each week than I’ve ever used before, and then we’ve had to buy additional vegetables for Phoebe. It seems so wrong to be buying frozen broccoli and peas when I have a fridge full of farm-fresh vegetables.

And I’m irritated that I’m trying to be all supportive of this CSA business, and spread the word, and encourage people to consider trying it out. And right now I don’t feel so gung ho. It’s been a fair amount of work, both to go get the vegetables (I even had to rearrange my schedule to be able to make it to one of the two weekly pick-up dates) and to prepare them.

I know that there’s a lot of variation in how the farms and CSA shares operate. My advisor at school is also participating in one, and the deal he gets sounds more appealing. He doesn’t go to a farm, but to a pick-up location that is in or near Boston. What he’s gotten in his weekly shares also sounds more appealing. So maybe I just need to find a different CSA next time around.

So, like all relationships, we’ve had a few bumps. I’m sure that we’ll make up again in a few weeks. I have enjoyed the veggies we’ve gotten so far, and we’re eating more healthily than usual, possibly more healthy than ever. But for now, I think I’ll sit and pout and give the CSA the cold shoulder.

all the right ingredients

Yesterday was my CSA pick-up day again. The load was a bit more compact this time, without the mega-loads of lettuce. (I won’t be cursing those ninja woodchucks yet, as I still have plenty of lettuce from last week.) We got beets, scallions, baby fennel, more bok choi (the last of it till fall), a bit more kale, baby garlic, and a little bundle of basil.

I was very excited about the basil, and had the urge to use it right away. And then I realized that, amazingly, I had all the ingredients for a traditional pesto: we had a hunk of parmesan, lots of pine nuts and some decent olive oil. And with the baby garlic fresh out of the ground and that beautiful bunch of basil, we were golden. I am not someone who has a well-stocked pantry in general, so I felt quite pleased with myself for being able to do this. We had the pesto with some rotini. It was pretty tasty.
justpostjune2007
And speaking of having the right ingredients for some tasty goodness, the Just Posts are up again. This month, jen of One Plus Two is joined by Jess of Oh, The Joys to serve up this monthly buffet of posts on topics of social justice and activism. I’ve got a post on the table over there, too. Head on over and dig in. (Just click the pretty birdy button.)