Minorities

“The Next American Revolution” by Boggs & Kurashige

Posted onWednesday 17 October 2012

After reading The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs & Scott Kurashige, I confess my primary reaction was a frustrated, “Why is this not being better shared? Why must we keep re-inventing the wheel?” Upon reflection, I’d guess there must be some serious corporate (or socio-cultural?) interests involved, that…

“Feminism & the Mastery of Nature” by Val Plumwood

Posted onSunday 7 October 2012

This is an astonishingly “chewy” book! I’m impressed, as well as greatly enjoying Plumwood’s fascinatingly erudite, logical — and yet, I feel, still thoughtfully spiritual — considerations on ecofeminism. She is, in fact, so logic-oriented that it was initially a bit disconcerting when her writing was also richly metaphorical. It’s always a pleasure to discover…

“Unbowed: A Memoir” by Wangari Maathai, pt. 2

Posted onSunday 23 September 2012Friday 21 September 2012

Being a child of the US, I’ve only seen online, rather than face-to-face, the types of deeply vicious and misogynistic attacks which Maathai describes: [C]ertain people were jealous and wanted me to be taught a lesson and put in my place. They took pleasure in what they perceived as my comeuppance. The message was clear:…

“Unbowed: A Memoir” by Wangari Maathai, pt. 1

Posted onSaturday 22 September 2012Friday 21 September 2012

There is a phrase that’s apparently become popular on Twitter conversations where someone wishes to point out unconscious privilege: they state that the issue under discussion is an FWP, or “First World Problem.” Reading Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed: A Memoir, I found myself often reflecting with bleak amusement that all the issues I’ve ever faced —…

Advanced Research Methodologies journaling

Posted onSunday 16 September 2012Saturday 15 September 2012

I dedicated most of this week to (amongst other things) catching up on the readings for this class, so I could start on the required reflection paper as soon as possible. Here are the readings to date for all those intellectual sadists who are following along: Chapter 1 of Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber & Patricia Lina…

What is Community? part 3: Soleri’s definitions

Posted onTuesday 11 September 2012Wednesday 6 February 2013

So does CoH qualify as a community? Does Arcosanti as it stands today, or Lupin Lodge? Paolo Soleri (who is still alive, though I speak of his writing in the past tense) devoted quite a bit of thought to community. According to him, there is a “magic of the big city” (23) as much as…

What is Community? part 2: City of Heroes

Posted onMonday 10 September 2012Monday 10 September 2012

What causes a feeling of community? What creates a coherent sub-culture? Both my housemates play on the on-line multiple-player game City of Heroes, which is being startlingly abruptly shut down by NCSoft, the Korean company that bought the game some years ago. Watching my housemates, I find myself faintly surprised at the real distress I…

Journaling while reading Griffin’s “Woman & Nature”

Posted onFriday 31 August 2012Sunday 27 January 2013

Later edit: I’ve been informed I wasn’t clear regarding this posting — sorry! I should have said what I am describing, in my comments below, is a collection of quotes of other sources put together by Griffin, the book’s author, to show the state of the world as far as women and nature are concerned…

New Mexico: very weird! part 2

Posted onWednesday 8 August 2012

I stumbled across this today while writing down my memories of further proof of New Mexico’s inherent weirdness: Roswell UFO Crash: There Were 2 Crashes, Not 1, Says Ex-Air Force Official. Yep… that’s about par for the course for New Mexico. :) So on the way home I was planning on driving through Texas in…

Laissez les bons temps rouler! part 3

Posted onWednesday 8 August 2012Tuesday 7 August 2012

(Continuing from the earlier part 2) That was not the end of that exceptionally pleasant day. I went down several streets in the French Quarter in my wanderings, and was amused at the strong (and unsurprising) French theme for the street names: Burgundy (pronounced bur-GUN-dee), Dauphine, Decatur, Dumaine, Royal, Conti… but most of all I…