action figures sold separately

• i love it that the cnet news piece on the attempted censorship of burn actually links directly to the che cafe and FARC itself. take that u.c. buttferbrains admins!
• last month, democracy now had a segment in which feminist activists debated the issue of the campaign to save Amina Lawal and the riots surrounding the miss world pagent in nigera. for sure worth a listen, but be forewarned that there’s some infuriating moments with the middle-class white women berating the women of color for their misdirection. ug.
• bummer. girlpunk has “exceeded their bandwidth” and is serving an error page. check for updates.

via grrl.com, a collection of dog nose pics. and while her blog is linked on the blogbar, i want to also check out her music reviews and reading list.

• this reading list will come in handy when our study/action group needs more feminist lit.
• i didn’t know that heart disease killed more women than all cancers combined. i learned that cuz the editor of uppity women is struggling with heart disease and trying to find someone to keep the magazine up and running. back issues are there on the main page. check it.
• those energetic young fellows from el cerrito are up over 103,000 aol cds! give ‘em a hand and send yours in today.

15% was an o.k. tip (barely), back in the 70’s and part of the 80’s. the cost of living has since risen dramatically. that cost of living (as not perfectly, but pretty well reflected in the fed CPI there) has just about doubled since 1981 and the minimum wage has risen about 65%. It strikes me as odd, then, that most of us tip only 5% more than we did back then. You know that person who served you your brunch yesterday? They weren’t making much more than minimum wage, if that. If you need a little reminder of what that’s like, check out the stained apron zine. And next time, since you know you can afford the extra dollar, think about the cost of living and tip a little better. mmmk? good.

Update: i have now officially left behind my contracting business, at least for the time being. if side jobs come up in the future, i will likely take on little projects here and there, but for now i’ve made a big career shift. after moving to portland this past summer, i was poised to get the business i’d built up in the SF bay area going again: doing the kind of work you see on the biz card here, and more, for grassroots non-profit organizations. of course, it would take a while to establish my base and i’d have to do some amount of home theater and whatnot in the meantime, but i was ready: i had gotten my license to be a general contractor, placed ads, etc.

well, in a bureaucratic snafu of huge proportions, a staff member in the licensing section of the oregon building codes division told me (at 3:15 pm on 13 aug 02 for the record), that i did NOT need an additional license with BCD in order to do only telephone jacks and computer network wiring, as long as i wouldn’t be working on electrical wiring or the circuit breaker/box, my CCB # is all i would need. i trusted that this staff person knew the law. she even took down my info and had me write down her name and number for people to call if there were any questions about my work.

so i studied hard and passed the test and got my license. as it happened, in november i got confusing reports of other contractors getting permits denied and licenses suspended and so forth. when i called to clarify matters, i was handed from person to person until i finally spoke with the director of licensing. he informed me that the previous staff person had been wrong and that to do any of this kind of work, i would need two additional licesnes, pay additional fees and do about four more years of basic apprenticeship. no thanks.

after much deliberation and talking it over with friends and family, i’m going into something i’ve wanted to do for a long time, teaching. if everything goes as planned, i’ll be entering a master in education program in the spring, and in a year to a year and a half i’ll be certified to teach high school technology classes. i’m actually so excited for this change. it will be a chance to work in a community of folks in a way that i’ve not had for many years, plus i think i’ll be doing a lot more good in the world. so that’s the deal. stay tuned for more developments

i’ve been trying to re-inspire myself to blog more, now that the medium madness of holeydaze is starting to subside. “Chronica” is what i call it, cuz in my familiy it’s christmas (sort of), and it’s chanuka, and it’s chronic. A is on OB right now, and surprisingly, not hating it. she was in dread. she may post more soon at residentblog, but i think all of them must be on pretty hard rotations right now. it’s been quiet over there.

in my quest for re-inspiration, i’ve noted the following sites of interest, that you, dear reader, may want to peep:

• this page intentionally left blank may become my second favorite from go fuck yourself, after em, of course.
• i’m starting to enjoy this booklist, and this one, too. what a cool idea.
• if you haven’t already used it, there’s a handy blog glossary with hundreds and hundreds of terms, some useful, some not so, all about the blogification nation.
• i talked to someone the other day who went to and really liked the sluts against rape benefit show. i wonder if they’ll organize it again or yearly or what, for those of us who missed it.
• had dinner the other night with an old pal and mentor, my advisor when i was at lewis & clark, who has gone on to start a very cool nonprofit, the Zimbabwe Arts Project (not on the web yet, but this is some photos and their contact info). a really yum time was had catching up, indeed inspiring.
• if you haven’t yet seen speedstacking, and you need a small kick into high gear, check out (linked from that page) the new video of world champ emily fox. yes, that video is real-time. you are not seeing something that has been sped up. she is actually doing that as you see it. it may be a bit choppy, especially on dialup, but she indeed did all that in under 8 seconds. time to get off your butt and… well i don’t know, but time to get off your butt.
• resolutions and updates have now been posted (prolly for a while now, but i finally found it), from the Second National Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement. check it.
• sidenote: the two old friends i have who’ve been very recently going through big break-ups have not yet (publically) blogged about it yet, but when they do, look out. it’s been very trippy to be in such an amazingly good place with my sweetie, and be supporting (or trying to support) someone in such a foul spot with their once-so-lovely now creature of hell and ugly fog.

on what i thought were two of the coolest blogs out there. (they are still on the blogbar, but i’ll be removing them when i get a chance.) the first was nonharmful, which was an excellent blog about medicine, biology, and society. often very progressive, sometimes very funny, and usually very engaging. it’s been that blank page now for months. which is even worse, because there’s no archives. the content it linked to now lost in the memory hole, with the exception of the items i occaisionally linked to here.

the second blog still exists, and we were wondering what had happened to it’s author, an irreverent high schooler named Katie, or so we thought. Katie Raygun, as it happens, is a voice actually written by a writer named Kevin Fanning. why he saw it as necessary to deceive the world about Katie is beyond me. it’s a cute trick, i guess, but why not be up front about it once’s its done? whatever. fanning actually went so far as to create fictional friends who filled up her guestbook pages and he even put in links to other similar sites. i guess i’m just bitter about it because i was so inspired that a teenager with her web-savvy, cynical clarity, sense of doom, and great humor in the face of it all was out there sharing her thoughts with the world. now that i know there is actually no such person (but rather some guy, a midwestern gen Y english major sort), i feel a bit duped and bummed at my own naivete. another illusion shattered. oh well. since there’s been no content for many months, i’ll take it down off the blogbar soon also.

you may not know who Ashly Massey is, but she and her folks are suing the Banning (outside L.A.) skool distirct for discrimination. stories are nicely collected at google of course, but the reuters piece from CNN stands out as paticularly obtuse:

The case highlights the tightrope schools must walk in an era of sexual openness, as they must protect both the rights of gay students and their heterosexual classmates, who could raise issues of privacy or sexual harassment.

and for some reason reuters.com is not listing the story as being theirs. curious, since it would be nice to see what butt-for-brains thinks that het rights are so threatened by the mere presence of a queer person. i mean come on, this paragraph might as well just say, “Since all gay people are known to be sexual predators, the school district is rightly worried that by granting special access to locker room facilities, they may come under fire from parents of Heterosexual children, who fear for their safety.” why the fuck else do these reuters reporters assume that classmates would raise issues of “privacy or sexual harassment.” Sheesh.

on the eli lilly bandit, and other such whakosity: over at common sense, they are running a contest to see who, if anyone, can find out which legislator entered in the rider to recent homeland security legislation [evidently, reporters have been unable to get the info]. while it’s a neat gimmick, i’m flummoxed that our sham democracy doesn’t even have the most minimal standards of accountability in place so that you can tell who authored something that’s going to be barking federal law! it so reminds me of Brazil (the film, not Brasil the nation). it’s Tuttle, not Buttle, and don’t even bother asking who makes the rules.

oh, and thanks, lisa!

i just got off the phone with my mom. i called so i could get her recipe for a friend. here it is, handed down over the generations from my dad’s people when they came over from russia in the 1880’s (or picked up from a homemaker magazine she read during her housewife years circa 1956-1972, i’m not sure which- probably it’s a mixture of the two). either way it has always been a favorite, she invariably has to make two loaves so that there’s enough for french toast on saturday morning. [ps: if anyone has a good vegan version please pass it on or point to it, i’d like to learn to make it.]

beat with wisk:
2 room temp eggs
a teaspoon salt
quarter cup sugar

add 2 envelopes of powdered yeast to a half cup of water
pour this in to the egg mix when it’s puffy

add 5 cups flour (more if you find the mix is too sticky)

form into ball
put into a greased bowl
cover with dish towel, set in warm spot, e.g. over a gas stove’s pilot light or in a 200 degree oven
let it double in size

take it out, punch it down
flatten onto a floured board
cut into 4 strips
roll these strips into rolls
pinch one end together, braid into four way braid (always start with same side, going over, under, over, under - don’t be too gentle, you can work it here, then pinch the other side together)

set on cookie sheet (greased if necessary), cover again with a dishtowel
let this double, also in a warm place
once doubled, brush gently with 1 egg yolk mixed with water
sprinkle sesame or poppy seeds over the surface, if desired

bake for about 25 minutes in a 350 oven (i think, mom’s getting back to me about that part)

more on walmart from the ufcw and reclaim democracy via the irrepressable emness.

i don’t have an update, but someone must, so what’s the latest on the fcc ban of your revolution? i know it was in the courts from SJ’s post of March 1, but where does it stand now?

ninth art has some year-endish stuff like a reivew of the coolest covers and so forth. a cool place to read up on the new comic world in general. go.

oh, and for my sisters and my brother: this amazing silliness [go to the archives for the full deal] is why were were saying “lo bob, lo weebl! will there be pie?” all weekend. (high speed connect required, no doubt.)

hanging out with the folks and my bro and sisters in CA, and on a “lodgenet” terminal, so can’t say much right now, except AMTRAK is COOL - don’t press the big delete key on them, feds. ug.

go go go go go. really. if you can swing it, go. it’s in portland and it’s running til the end of the month. it’s called DOJUMP! amazing. just go.

i know i may be seen as a nit-picker for this, but there’s an important distinction to be made here, i think. i find most of the stuff at crimethinc thoroughly engaging and worthwhile. however, in their new print mag, fighting for our lives, they define anarchism thusly:

Whenever you act without waiting for instructions or official permission, you are an anarchist. Any time you bypass a ridiculous regulation when no one ’s looking, you are an anarchist. If you don ’t trust the government, the school system, Hollywood, or the management to know better than you when it comes to things that affect your life, that ’s anarchism, too. And you are especially an anarchist when you come up with your own ideas and initiatives and solutions.

with this, i couldn’t disagree more. as i see it, even the most vitriolic of reactionary thugs often acts without waiting for official permission, bypasses official regulations, and is certainly mistrustful of the government, school system, and hollow-wood. members of freedom rising, writing for the 1989 Without Borders gathering, defined anarchism this way:

ANARCHY: A self governed society in which people organize themselves from the bottom up on an egalitarian basis. This means decisions made by those affected by them. It means direct democratic control of our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, towns, and bio-regions with coordination between differing groups as needed. A world where women and men are free and equal and all of us have power over our own lives, bodies, and sexuality; where we cherish and live in balance with the earth; where we value diversity of cultures, races, and sexual orientations; where we work and live together cooperatively.

our anarchism links section has good resources for those wanting to look more deeply into this.