Vermont Summer
Fotos
Earth As Friend, Care As Collective, Struggle As Compassion
A beautiful catch-up conversation with my friend Junot has got me viewing photos of this week’s camping trip with new eyes.
As we reconceptualize our ideas of care and stress relief, striving to integrate our healing and fighting work, I feel challenged to question my relationship to this restorative vacation in the redwood forest. Not “question” like browbeat myself about it, but firmly and lovingly investigate my own views.
Do I see these hikes as a kind of spiritual refueling? Do I see them as material for photographs? Do I view the trees and streams and skies as teachers, as providers of wisdom, about impermanence, identity, and borders? Do I see myself as responsible to these paths? These non-wildernesses? Are we in dialogue, or am I looking for an uncomplicated, friendly, comfortable, and shallow “mothering”? Is the earth a being with rights? Is the earth a being beyond rights?
Park
Ryan got two consecutive days off (hooray!), so we’re heading south tomorrow to camp in the forest. Before I go, I wanted to quickly post some images of a park in San Francisco. No better, no worse than the “natural” environments we’re about to enjoy? I don’t know for sure, but the camera helps remind me to pay close attention, regardless of preference.
White Beans and Cabbage
Dinner. Cover recipe from Heidi Swanson’s new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day. The flavors here are more subtle than I’m used to (normally I just douse everything in lemon juice and pile on the cayenne and cumin), but once I lasered in, I found a lot to enjoy. Slight spiciness of the barely-cooked cabbage plays off the creamy sweetness of the beans (I used canned fagioli) and tiny diced Yukon Gold potatoes. I actually smiled at a burst of tangy-smokiness from the sauteed shallots. It’s the kind of dish where each ingredient matters because it all comes together quite quickly in one pan, so you can fully taste the fresh produce* without relying a lot on spices. And because each flavor is independent, every spoonful yields a slightly different taste combination. Which is dangerous, because it makes me curious to eat more and more even after I am so so full!
Here’s what I did, adapted from Heidi’s formula.
12 oz. fagioli white beans from a can, rinsed and drained
6 or 7 small Yukon Gold potatoes, each about golf-ball-size
1 large shallot
Half of 1 medium green cabbage
4 glugs extra virgin olive oil
two big pinches of salt
Parmesan cheese (optional)Wash the potatoes well and dice them into tiny cubes. In a big frying pan (I used 2 skillets to ensure maximal crusty browning action) glub in 2 glubs of olive oil (that’s 2 each if you’re using 2 pans) and turn the heat to medium (5–6 on my burner dial). When the oil is hot, add the potatoes, sprinkle with the salt, and toss to coat. Cover and set a timer for 2 minutes; when it goes off, toss them again to help brown on all sides. Cook for a total of 5–7 minutes or until tender and golden.
Meanwhile, slice the shallot very thin, and chop/slice the cabbage thin, also. When the potatoes are cooked, add the shallot and the beans, and spread the beans on the bottom of the pan so they get a chance to get nice and crusty, too. (Scrape around the bottom of the pan to loosen all the crusty bits.) Let ’em hang out for a few minutes, finish chopping your cabbage, then add the cabbage and stir to warm through — just enough so it wilts a little and goes bright green.
When it all looks and smells tantalizing, turn out into a serving dish and serve with a dusting of parmesan cheese, or as-is for a vegan feast. Hell yes.
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*Under communism, I am told, everyone will have fresh produce because there won’t be the kind of leave-the-unprofitable-extra-produce-to-deliberately-spoil bullshit that currently goes on, and instead we will grow food for use, not profit. Yay!
Zine Week Day 4: New Thoughts On Animal Liberation
What, you thought Zine Week would adhere to linear time?
Just kidding; sorry for the lapse! Today’s zine, from a member of Austin-based group ¡ella pelea!, is especially exciting for its application of class consciousness theory from Advance the Struggle’s Oscar Grant pamphlet (featured on Zine Week Day 2) to the Animal Rights Movement (ARM) in the U.S.
Continue reading
Zine Week Day 3: A Stand Up Start-Up: Confronting Sexual Assault with Transformative Justice by Philly Stands Up
Last month I talked a little bit about transformative justice and the dope workshop that folks from the Philly Stands UP collective offered here in Oakland. This zine is one I picked up at that workshop: kind of like a primer for the PSU model.
There’s a lot I like about this zine. Its unpretentious candor. The ways it contextualizes itself, pointing to overlapping work that others are doing. (The final chapter is an excerpt from Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology.) The way it foregrounds survivor support in its Points of Unity:
We are a group that survivors can come to for help and support. We will always support survivors and ensure survivor autonomy, where they will always be in control of how a situation is dealt with.
. . .
We do not support the prison system as a viable means of rehabilitation for perpetrators, but we will always support a survivor’s wishes and engage the legal system on any level necessary.
Zine Week Day 2: Justice For Oscar Grant by Advance the Struggle
Sorry for the late post again! Today’s zine is already a Bay Area radical classic, examining the politics around the recent wave of struggle following a caught-on-tape police murder. A white cop shot a young Black Oakland resident in the back, while the young man was lying face-down on a subway platform. (This officer, by the way, may be released from prison next month, having served less than a year of his 2-year sentence.)
Published in its original version back in mid-July of 2009, the new updated edition contains the same dope analysis of the role of nonprofits, histories of rioting, racist policing and more, plus a new preface, more art, and a supplementary article: “Moving Beyond Violence vs. Nonviolence.”
In my forthcoming guest column in make / shift magazine, I draw on A/S’s analysis of the Oscar Grant movement to illustrate my own alternatives to liberal, relativist interpretations of Buddhist teachings. You’ll have to wait til the magazine comes out to read my application of their deft explications, but in the meantime why not throw down a few dollars for a copy (just click the Donate button on the Advance the Struggle blog) and print the primary source material yourself? :)
Ink drought in your printer? No worries; you can read the web version, too. Still donate, though!
Zine Week, Day 1: A Rejected Summation by brownfemipower
I’m not really sure why it took me so long to get into zines. Even now I’m not particularly ‘into’ them, to tell the truth — which is strange, considering that I love handmade objects, and I obviously love informal self-publishing. True zine-ophiles (ha! xenophiles!) might cringe at overly broad definitions of the form, but to a layperson like me, the essence of zines seems to be (a) self-manufacture and (b) text and images. Why wouldn’t a blog count? (Unless, of course, you’re a stickler about the handmade-object thing, which, really, I wouldn’t blame you, because as I said, I have a crush on handmade objects.)
Today’s zine captured my heart immediately, not only because it was made by one of my all-time favorite bloggers / writers, who goes by brownfemipower (or bfp for short), but also because it arrived at my home in the mail as a gift, all the way from Ypsilanti, Michigan, accompanied by a beautiful note in sky-blue ink.
California Nurses Assoc. Goes on Strike Down the Street
Some images from a 5-day strike at the Children’s Hospital just a few blocks from where Ryan, Mai and I live. The contracts that the bosses are trying to push would include so many “takeaways” (cuts to previously held benefits) that nurses who work in the hospital would no longer be able to afford to bring their own children there for treatment.
Ryan and I chatted up a lot of the workers for a while, and thanked them for setting an inspiring example by actually going out on strike and fighting back. Lots of positive energy, aided, I think by the freshness of the action (it was the first of the 5 days) and a steady stream of honks of encouragement from folks driving down Martin Luther King Jr Way.
Baby Kih’ens
Exhausted. But this morning got to play with kittens, born to a friend of a friend of a friend down the road.
Kloncke 