Smoking Radishes

The consulate, the police, and an escort to the plane

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:56:17 GMT

So, I've been trying to write about my experiences of the last 24 hours of my time in New Zealand as if it were fiction, but I just can't do it. The story keeps coming out sounding so trite. It's either too long or leaves out too many important details, and the attempts to strip my personality and my identity out of the mother character just make the whole thing thin and uninteresting. I desperately want to write about the events, but it feels wrong just blogging about it all in a straight first person account.

The fact of the matter is that the last day has been the very hardest of this extraordinarily stressful month, and the last 3 hours before getting on the airplane were the hardest of all. In hindsight, I think that I should have been able to get through it with far less emotion and with far cooler head. But, despite the fact that I was literally shaking with nerves and rage when I found out that my son's plane ticket out of New Zealand had been canceled by his father, I managed to handle the situation well enough to get us on the plane and back home.

My first fear was that my ex had managed to get some sort of last-minute court injunction to keep me from leaving the country. A check of the Interpol list for such things said that my son and I were free to fly, but even so, I had to spill the entire story from 6 years ago to the present, including court documents and other evidence that I handily had brought with me on the trip for just such an emergency, to a police officer, a customer service representative and the duty manager. The decision was made that they would allow me onto the plane, but I had to buy a new ticket for my son, which I couldn't actually do myself.

Luckily for me, a friend/guardian angel had told me that morning that if I needed a new ticket for Roo, he would front me the money for it. So, I sent him an email with the word EMERGENCY in the subject, and he took care of it for me. Meanwhile, the helpful people at Air New Zealand scooted me off through the first class lounge with an escort to make sure that there were no ugly incidents as I left the country.

I don't expect to fly Air New Zealand again for many, many years, since I have no intention of returning to that country at least until Andrew is in his mid to late teens. However, I am SO thankful for their handling of this particularly difficult incident, that I urge any of you considering a trip down to Australia or New Zealand to give them your custom. And if you weren't thinking about going down there, you should. New Zealand is gorgeous and there is SO much to do there. So go, and fly Air New Zealand. Thank you.

Roo and I got onto the plane with much elation and sighs of relief. There were high fives, low fives, in the sky fives, and some general silliness.

As I write this now, I'm somewhere over the Pacific on my way to Los Angeles. It's going to take me a while to integrate this whole experience. I went down to New Zealand expecting some sort of major shift in me personally and in my life. I think I see where this shift has taken me, but I'm not sure how I feel about the shift, so I have a lot of work ahead. The results of that work will be blogged for sure, but not publicly. Some may make it into friend readable posts, but a lot of it will just be for me.

On a completely side note, when I sat down in the airplane seat today I thought to myself, "Wow! These seats are much wider than the ones on my flight here." and then I realized that it was not the seats that were wider at all. My pants are falling off, too. I'm going to need to do some shopping pretty soon here! (Maybe I should take a special trip up to Idaho so that Matt can pick out clothes for me the way he used to. That way I can get new clothes without actually having to shop for them. hehehe)

A day for the history books...

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:21:05 GMT

Today, Roo beat me at chess. I didn't let him win. I didn't even see it coming until just before it happened. He strategized. He plotted. His first plan was foiled, and so he aggressively went for a plan B, and then he informed me proudly that he got me by a "corridor or back ranks checkmate". Of course I took a picture.

I should mention that he has been studying very hard, and practicing and practicing. Over the last few days it has gotten harder and harder to beat him, even as my own skills have been improving by working with him through different chess strategies and things. I'm sure it helps that he loves chess, and I'm not all that interested in it except as a way to spend some quality time with my kid. But, you know how it is, when you love someone and you spend time doing something they love with them, sometimes some of the joy of the thing rubs off on you.

So, yay Roo!

Blogs Blogging Blogs

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 12:33:27 GMT

Yeah, I know, it's sad when all you can blog about is another blog you've found, but, what can I say. I like it when other people write about all the joy and weirdness that is my Home. (No, not Berkeley, silly... the other Home.)

Check out Isrealli. There were lots of posts that I enjoyed, but of course, when I got to the post about Idan Raichel, while listening to the album I got last week for the millionth time, well, I knew I just had to give them a nod. *grin* Don't miss their discussions of gay culture in Israel, or Israeli taxi cabs or Israeli artists who are making it elsewhere... Oh, just read the whole thing, OK?

But don't forget to come back to me, or I'll cry.

Now I know why I can't get a boyfriend

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:56:47 GMT

It's because I am a PS3. "Haven't you heard of the Blue Ray?!" hehehehehe...

Brave Little Sarah

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:28:44 GMT

If you've never seen the Land Before Time, then you won't know the title's reference, but trust me, it fits tonight.

My son's dad currently has my son's US passport in his possession, and he doesn't want to hand it over. He also hasn't paid for my son's ticket back to the US. This is unacceptable. He claims that I don't need either until the day before I leave. But reasonably, I can't wait that long. I'm not going to wait until the day before I'm supposed to leave only to find then that he's not going to give it to me or claims to have "lost" it, thereby stranding me in this country for even longer.

I told him to bring the passport and proof that he'd paid the ticket when he came to pick up Roo today. I messaged him twice more to remind him to bring the passport (I would have been flexible if he'd done one or the other, honestly). He didn't bring the passport and he hasn't paid the ticket, still. So, I told him that he'd could go home, get the passport and then he could pick Roo up.

He got mad, so I explained why it is that I have good reason to be like this. He was supposed to hand over Roo's New Zealand passport years ago. He was ordered by the courts not once, but over and over again. He never did it. He refused to give me a copy of Roo's medical immunization records, which included shots on four different schedules in four different countries by the time he was 18 months old. (You can see why knowing exactly which shots he'd gotten by that time might be a little important...) Eventually, I had to subpoena those records from the doctor's office in New Zealand. So, now, of course I'm not sitting here all calm and reassured that he's going to give me the passport on the day before I go. Give it to me now. Period.

He left. He didn't come back. He didn't call back. Didn't message back. I don't know what he is thinking now, or planning. I'm planning my next move. At this moment, I can't imagine letting Roo travel down here to New Zealand alone again before he's at least 16 or so, when he can get his own bee-hind over to the US Embassy if necessary and get himself home.

As I finished up the conversation with Adam, and turned to head upstairs to my apartment, Roo was standing at the elevator. He said, "Wow, mum. Remind me never to get you mad."

Can you figure out what you are looking at?

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:44:11 GMT

Here are some cool things to look at on Google Maps. Can you figure out what they are? (The answers are in the tool tips.)

42.701936359N, 115.993694935E

48.85818600 2.29419000

51.50113559719755 -0.1236487948684726

37.81704600 -122.47487300

We hope you enjoy the tour!!!

- Lisha and Roo

Kids make you think...

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 07:46:13 GMT

Today at dinner Roo and I got into another interesting conversation. He was going on and on about military things, blending reality with video game militarism. He talked about wanting to go into the Marines and about why his uncle Wade thinks he should try to be in Special Forces (they get the really cool weapons).

I said, "Do you know what they do with those really cool weapons?"

He looked at me as if I'd said something stupid, "Yeah..."

"They kill people with them." I said.

And then I pointed out that it's not so cool if your mom gets killed, or your brother, or your dad. Or what about yourself? "What if someone with a cool weapon kills you?" I asked.

"I'd be sad."

"You'd be dead." I said.

I told him that since he's an Israeli citizen, when he's 18 he's going to be drafted into the Army there. (I didn't get into any of the details about how if he doesn't live there during the prime draft years, he won't be drafted or any of that...) And he thought about that for a moment.

Then he went back to his talk about video game weapons and dropped the stuff about the real military. This kept up, and I patiently listened to him, hoping he'd switch topics soon. We finished dinner and left the food court where we were eating. He started discussing some of the specifics of Halo on the XBox. He kept with that as we walked home. Finally, as we reached the last intersection before home I finally had enough.

"Hun," I started, "You know what? I'm trying to act interested because I love you, but I'm really pretty tired of this topic. I'm not interested in these games and I don't want to hear about them any more right now."

He paused. And then he responded, "They're fun. Don't you like blowing things up?"

"Well, yeah, sure. I like to blow things up in controlled situations... but not people, and not nice things. I mean, like an old building that needs to be demolished? That's fun to watch get blown up. Or a model rocket that explodes instead of launching. That's pretty cool, too. But no one is getting hurt, and no one's stuff is being destroyed. I don't like that stuff."

And here's where my son said something a little too insightful for a seven year old, "But, you like Lord of the Rings. Lots of people got killed in Lord of the Rings. So you DO like death and destruction!"

I thought about that for a moment. I honestly had to consider why I think that LOTR is OK but Halo is not. Finally, I was able to answer him.

"There's a difference. I'll tell you what I think the difference is, and you can consider it. You might not agree with me, but here it is," I began.

"These days we don't use swords or axes or Ballistas in war. Those aren't the ways we kill people today, and so the battles and the killing are very clearly just make believe. There's no connection between that and real world violence in my thoughts and actions. But you talk about Halo in one breath and about the weapons that you might get when you grow up and are a soldier in the next breath. These are connected for you.

"Halo influences you and inspires you to think of life as something less than valuable. You think of people as being just as replaceable as the characters on a video game, and that's just not the case. All life is valuable. Even the life of a person you hate is still valuable. They have a purpose, a roll in life, and meaning. You need to protect that life.

"In real life, when you become a soldier, you are saying that you are going to protect other people's life and freedom with your own life. You are saying that you are willing to die in order to make sure that other people are saved and that they can live the life that they were meant to live. That means that if a commanding officer tells you to kill someone that really shouldn't be killed, you have to say 'No'. You have to be willing to stand up for what's right at all costs."

Roo jumped in at that, "But if my commander told me to do something and I didn't, then I'd be killed."

"Yes," I replied, "Exactly. But the moment you become a soldier, you are as good as dead. You've already said that you will give your life for what you believe is right, the day that you enter the military. So if you die because you protected a life by not killing them unjustly, then you did exactly what you promised to do when you joined. That's what being a warrior really is. Standing up for what's right, even when you know that it will get you killed."

We were both left with some things to think about.

If there was one thing I could change about myself...

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:39:18 GMT

If there was one thing I could change about myself, I'd be quieter. I'd laugh just as much, but I wouldn't be so loud about it, and when I talked I would be the sort of person that people lean in to listen to, because whatever I was saying would be interesting enough on it's own, so I shouldn't have to shout it. This seems like an easy concept, but I've never managed it. I'm really much too loud. (Proof positive I'm American, I guess.)

Things that make me go write

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 04:05:08 GMT

This morning I had coffee and a muffin at my favorite little organic, fair trade cafe just down the street from the apartment where I'm staying here in Auckland. They usually play music from the Putumayo collection (http://www.putumayo.com), but there was something different on the speakers today. I turned off my MP3 player and listened to their music. Wait, wait... that's Arabic. No, wait, that's Hebrew. Amharic? Hebrew again. I don't remember any Putumayo CD with music like this!! I sat there for a really long time after I finished my coffee and muffin.

The music inspired a poem, scribbled in the journal that I carry in my bag for just such moments. I finished the poem and listened to the music a bit longer, feeling torn between the idea that I should go do something with my day and the wish to stay put until the music was done. I decided to just buy that CD and go.

I walked up to the Putumayo display and looked for the CD there. Nothing. So I asked at the cafe counter. The lady came over, looked over the available CD's and suggested it might be the Italian one. "Nope. The music that is playing is Israeli," I told her. "Mmm.. Maybe the Turkish one?" she suggested. "No. The Turkish CD would be in Turkish, not Hebrew, Amharic and Arabic." She was stumped. She offered to run back to the CD player and find out what it was. She came back a moment later with the CD in her hand. "It's none of those. I don't know who put this on." She apologized.

The CD was brown and said, "The Idan Raichel Project." I thanked the lady and headed straight over to Borders Books. This album must be popular because I found it easily in the World Music section under Israel. Or maybe it was just meant to be.

Of course, I was in Borders, so I couldn't just pick up a single CD and leave. I browsed the books, and what did I find? A new collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman.

Now, I'm certain that someone told me about this book. I thought that it was Noé, but he says it wasn't him. Who it was, I cannot recall, and I guess it doesn't matter so much. What I do know is that Gaiman always inspires me to write more. So, of course, I had to buy a copy of Fragile Things.

The first thing I read was the poem "The Fairy Reel". I read it again and again. And when Roo showed up at the house, I read it aloud to him, partly because he's a Gaiman fan, too, and partly just so I'd have an excuse to read it again.

And before I left Borders, I made one other stop at the card display. I've been feeling like writing old-fashioned snail mail. I love snail mail. It's different than email. You write it differently, and it's different when you get an envelope in a real mailbox than when you see the bold number of unread messages in your electronic inbox. I picked out three cards with photos from different parts of New Zealand, and thought about who would receive each one. Then, I payed for everything and wandered out to Aotea Square to sit under a tree and write a note to some friends.

Back home, now, Roo is running around the common room playing and I'm listening to the Idan Raichel Project and letting stories tell themselves in magical rearrangements of 26 and 22 letters... This is the life.

A piece of my mind

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:13:53 GMT

I would write you a million stories,
You should know that by now.
I would bring you tales and dreams
From the farthest reaches of the multiverse.
Within each story would hide a shining gem
To wear on any day,
To show all those who meet you
That the stories are yours to stay.

I would scribble a million stories
On the back of napkins for you.
With pen and ink and paper, too,
I'd write each one in blue.
Within the lines of the tale you'd find,
A little piece of what's on my mind.
You could take it
Wherever you go
To remember my thoughts are yours.

I would write a million songs
In the sand of the longest beach.
I would ask the waves to read them,
And sing them back to you.

Video from my new phone, YAY!

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 07:05:25 GMT

Of Internet Companies and Oppression

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:34:38 GMT

Today I did some searching for references regarding Yahoo! helping the Chinese government to prosecute dissidents who post things to the Web. Here is an article in the BBC, here is one at Boing Boing, and another at The Next Net.

I'm having a bit of a think about this, as to whether or not it is warranted to boycott Yahoo! entirely.

The first problem is the fact that their privacy statement and terms of service both say right on them that they will cooperate with government officials to the degree required by law, including handing over your information and the data that you posted through them. This would be reasonable, albeit uncomfortable, if each of the cases are of people who posted information THROUGH Yahoo!, whether via their webmail services, Yahoo!Groups or other Yahoo! services. I don't like that it can happen, but if you are using the services of a Web company, you'd better know what their policies are before you start doing things that your local government calls illegal. And if you are standing up against your government despite the risks, then you know what you've bought into. You read the terms when you signed up, right?

Dissidents have always known that they had to be careful about their words and their actions in public. The fact that activists today use public companies such as Yahoo! to post information that they think is anonymous is a sign of their ignorance. You wouldn't sit in just any ol' cafe and talk loudly about your anti-government opinions in China -- even wearing a mask on your face. Well, posting to newsgroups while using a Yahoo! email address is about the same thing.

Remember also that these business are trying to cover their backside as they do business in any country. We're talking about Yahoo! giving information about Chinese dissidents, but don't they also help the US government track down terrorists? And, for that matter, don't they help local police track down stalkers who use Yahoo! email address? Who gets to say when they should cooperate with a government and when they shouldn't?

Use the Internet to educate yourself first. Find out about anonymous remailers and other identity hiding techniques on the Net. Avoid handing your true contact information to any company that you may have to use for posting information that may later be used to incriminate you. Finally, if you are going to be an activist, you cannot forget that it is always inherently dangerous to stand up against the status quo.

Now, if facts are that Yahoo! gave information that was simply taken from anywhere on the Web, well, that's a different story entirely. That's not just the uncomfortable reality of talking about politics in an unfriendly cafe. That would be like a coffee shop owner hunting for political activists on the coffee plantations, and that's just nuts.

The second question I have regarding a total boycott of Yahoo! is what the alternatives are. I have seen news about Yahoo! helping the Chinese government, but what about Google or Microsoft? Are they also handing over information? I didn't find anything that said that they are, but the suggestion that they might be is out there, and of course, they both have the same "will hand over info to the government" clauses in their terms of service. If they are handing over information, and I boycott Yahoo!, then I need to boycott the others as well. Who can I not boycott? Is there anyone?

edit: Here is an interesting bit... Chinese pro-democracy activist Zhao Jing ranks Google as the least evil and Yahoo! as the worst in a quote at the end of this article on Google Mexico.

From the mouths of babes...

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:01:04 GMT

So, I stopped eating meat a little over two months ago. It started out as an experiment, but by the time I cooked Turkey for thanksgiving, the idea of meat had become well and truly disgusting to me. (I can't imagine taking tofurky to the homeless on Thanksgiving, though. That's just seems a bit self-righteous.) So, here I am in New Zealand and as I sit down to dinner with my youngest, the reasons for my recent change in diet become the topic of conversation.

"So, why are you an herbivore now?"

"Because I don't want to eat anything that had to be killed. I mean, they have moms, too."

"I don't get it."

"Well, OK, think about it this way, Roo. What if a tiger ate me. How would that make you feel?"

"Ummmm..." He pondered this for a while, and then said, "Well, good and bad."

I was a bit surprised by this response, but figured that I ought to hear out his reasons. Maybe he feels empathy for the tiger and figures that I'd make a tasty meal, "OK, what's the good and what's the bad?"

"Well, the good is that I could spend more time with my dad, and he let's me play action video games. The bad is that, even though you don't let me play violent games, you're still a really great mum, and I'd miss you!"

New Phone...

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:17:05 GMT

I was going to use a phone that Rutie leant to me, but it was locked to TMobile. T-Mobile refused to unlock it and the local cell phone companies said that it was illegal from them to unlock it. I need a phone, though, for organizing pick up and drop off of the boy child, and other things like that.

Since I had been wanting to buy a digital camera, I decided that it was worthwhile to buy myself a phone with a megapixel camera on it. Enter the new Razr. I hate the comercials for this phone, but I love the camera on it. And the price was good. NZ$345 (about US$240) You can see more pictures over at my flickr account.

Oh! Speaking of Flickr... and Yahoo!... I heard recently that Yahoo! cooperates with the Chinese government to ferret out dissidents with blogs or other Websites that speak out against the governement. I don't know if this is true or not, and I'd like to find out. Anyone have any knowledge of this? Citations? Anything?

And if it is true, I need to take my stuff of of Flickr, because I don't want to support a company that does business like that. So, does anyone know of a good Flickr alternative?

untitled

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 05:47:35 GMT

He thinks that no one wants him,
But little does he know,
The whole wide world is waiting,
With baited breath to show,
How big a heart is holding
His heart inside itself.

A Christmas Message (from a Jew)

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:00:04 GMT

"The birth of every infant is the ultimate prayer for peace."

- Bradley Burston
in "Jews aren't supposed to love Christmas", Haaretz.com, 25 Dec 2006

How is this helpful??

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 06:39:32 GMT

So, the Ministry of the Interior (משרד הפנים) in Israel is advertising in English on the English version of HaAretz, an Israeli news source, that if you are an Israeli citizen you need an Israeli passport or travel document to enter or exit Israel. The link then takes you to a page in Hebrew. All in Hebrew. With no "English version" link anywhere. Do they really think that Israeli citizens who prefer reading in Hebrew make a huge habit of reading the news about Israel in English?

As if that's not stupid enough, the page that the ad takes you to doesn't actually have any information for Israelis abroad. It tells you how to get your passport at the offices in Israel or to go to the post office, but it doesn't have any links to the embassies' and consulates' pages. The advertisement did say that you need an Israeli passport or travel document to get INTO as well as out of Israel. Clearly, they should have links for those Olim who bailed out of Israel before their Hebrew got very good, who are going back to Israel now for some trip or whatever and need a new travel document. Right?

OK, OK, I'm not done. Instead of having proper href links on the page, they have some stupid JavaScripting that doesn't even work right. It throws errors galore and sends you to a bad search page for every single thing you click. Then, I go to the main website for the Ministry of the Interior and it doesn't work right, either. There is a frameset that doesn't display properly in Firefox at all, and it's set to"no resize" so you can't even manually fix the problem. (OK, hullo?? Why the heck are you using FRAMES, people? Have you heard of CSS? ) The page also has numerous broken images and is just generally poor in it's User Interface Design.

Central Israel is the "Silicon Wadi", right? How many high-tech start ups? How many programmers and engineers? How many PHP gurus per square foot? Couldn't they do better?

Do I complain too much? Yeah, well, suck it up and get over it. That's just proof of my Israeliness.

Same-sex couples rights...

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:27:36 GMT

I have a problem with the idea that one sort of family grouping should have different rights and responsibilities than another sort of family grouping. This issue has been a very big one here in the US, with most laws going towards the most closed-minded attitudes about sex and marriage and what it means to be a family.

Let me clue you in, folks:
There is not enough love and joy in the world. We should do everything we can to support and uphold the love and strength of all families, whatever configuration they may come in.

In that vein, it always makes me happy to see when a court "gets it right", as the Tel Aviv Family Court did yesterday. Yay Judge Paul Stark! You go on my hero list for today.

My very first Wikipedia edit

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 22:29:40 GMT

Wow! I just made my very first Wikipedia edit!!! I never have anything to add to Wikipedia.

It was in the human sexuality article. I added the link to polygynandry. And then I went over to the polygynandry page and noticed that it's a stub. I'm going to have to fix that.

There is some interesting stuff about polygynandry discussed in the book Coevolution by William H. Durham. I'll have to look that stuff up again and write something intelligent into the stub. ;)

Earthquakes in Berkeley

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 19:07:26 GMT

Over the last four days there have been numerous small earthquakes. Three of them have been over 3.5 on the richter scale. Now, that's nothing. I grew up here in the Bay Area, and experienced several 5+ quakes in my youth, and even a couple over 6. A 3.7 earthquake wouldn't have even roused me out of my seat prior to the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. In fact, during that quake my dad yelled and yelled at me to get out off the damn couch and take my three week old son into a doorway, to which I responded, "But, dad, its just an earthquake!"

But, I'm a different person today. Call it "PTSD" or call it "wise with experience", I'm a bit more concerned about quakes. The fact that I'm in a house just a few blocks away from the actual Hayward fault, and that the epicenter of these quakes has been extremely close to me just adds a little to the nerves. The knowledge that there is a very high statistical possibility of a quake measuring more than 7 on this particular fault in the very near future, just makes me all that much more wary.

So, I've been hitting the USGS site every time I feel the earth shake. I've noticed some patterns in past earthquake clusters that make me feel a little better. There are these clusters of quakes over two or three days where the one two days after the first is the biggest. That matches the pattern we've had this week.

I still feel worried that these little guys might be a precursor to something bigger rather than a cluster unto themselves. I'm frustrated by my lack of precise knowledge about the patterns leading up to the big quakes, but I haven't found any source for more information. I tried looking up the quake lists in the months prior to big ones like Loma Prieta and Northrige, but in both cases I found only the info on the actual big event, and no listings of the quakes in the months leading up to those events.

The result is that I can just make up my own guesses, and wonder.

By the way, here's a map of recent quakes world wide.

Dropped the ball, failed some friends

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 07:27:10 GMT

So, I am feeling pretty rotten right now. The other day I looked into the basket that's by the head of my bed and I saw the business card of a couple of friends of mine that I hadn't called in a while. I had tried calling my friends sometime back, and I'd sent an email that she said in a voicemail never arrived. In the end, I meant to call back that week, and I didn't get to it. Then I put the card back in the basket at the end of a day when I emptied my pockets before bed, and there it sat until I picked it up day before yesterday (or whenever it was... Monday? Tuesday? I think Monday.)

Today I got an email from one of the two friends. It was a very upset sounding email, and it mentioned another email that she had mailed after my recent call. I never saw that email. I probably killed it by accident when trying to get rid of spam. My zipcon.net email is basically nothing but a spam box these days, and I stopped reading mail there on a regular basis weeks ago. Ack. So, I think they wanted to get together tomorrow. I couldn't have anyway, but the new email said that I should call before the end of the day today so that they would know what was up. Of course, I didn't read the email until 10:30 at night, well after they go to bed, being the early bird types.

I feel awful. Here I pride myself on being a loyal friend and I have dropped the ball by not calling, not emailing, and really not making an effort at all to get in touch for so long. It's true that I've been very busy during this time, and often overwhelmed with things, but I have also made the time to be with other friends, and even to make many new friends along the way. Almost none of those people sees or speaks to me very often, and I'd guess that most of them probably think I'm a flake.

I guess, the lesson here is to be less scattered and more focused. A new years resolution? Hmmm... I owe my brothers in Baltimore more emails and phone calls too. Let's se what I can do, at the very least, to just be a better friend and a better sister.

All the places I've been

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:36:19 GMT

El Savador, Guatemala, Mexico, the USA, Canada, the UK, Spain, Israel, Singapore, and New Zealand...

create your own visited country map

Noé says...

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 12:18:35 GMT

(posted with permission from an email from my son)

okay so this is a christian video game. notice how many enemies there
are. and how many good guys there are. and notice how swearing is a
special ability. Apparently activists are evil. so are orphans and
widows.... this just doesn't settle right with me.

http://www.eternalforces.com/characters.aspx?sect=Peacekeepers

mkay so christian video-game sure. why not? christian video game that
portrays christianity as a majority religion and portrays everyone
else as infidels and possible enemies. mkay people how is this
different from say... a video game about being muslim and running
into public places w/bombs strapped to you in order to take out as
many people as possible? That would insult everyone in every
religion, it would prolly end in a huge boycott. But this is a game
that our president would prolly support. on top of all of that I
found out about it through a news article about a jewish video game
for 5$ that stars a rabbi. Basically it's like this murder mystery
game called "Shiva" as in the period of mourning. See that's not a
game where we jews go and make everyone keep kosher. They were trying
to say "religious video games aren't all christian" what it came off
as to me is, "we don't understand how this jewish game is racist or
perpetuates ignorance but you see it's not the only one to do so.
It's just like this christian game only for jew people."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/12/13/shivah.rabbi.reut/index.html

I mean they should make the Hebrew Hammer into a video game, but
then again that would prolly include drive by circumcisions and drug
deals done with crack hidden in loaves of hallah back girl. lol. on
second thought that would be kind bad for our image as jewish people
anyway.

--Noé

OK, the world isnt' all bad

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:22:19 GMT

OK, so adults who work in government jobs may be big donkeys, but kids still make the world a worthwhile place. Go check out this story about the militant breastfeeding Mary in an English school Christmas play. Absolutely hilarious.

Wisconsin is going to hell...

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:08:12 GMT

What on EARTH can these idiots be thinking???? So, the Wisconsin Project failed miserably in Israel, so guess what they're doing? They're expanding it! That's brilliant, doncha think?

Don't know what the Wisconsin Project is? Someone had this beautiful idea that they could save the government a ton of money if they just forced all the people on welfare and supplemental income payments out to work. OK, so the some of the folks had never worked before in their life, who cares?! Send them to work. Some of them were single moms who couldn't make enough money to pay for childcare. Who cares?! Send them to work. You're deaf? Blind? Well, the computer says you should work. We don't have any support for you to help you find appropriate employment, and we don't give you any training. We'll just teach you how to write a resume and shove you out the door. Well, not exactly shove. You see, if you aren't actually employed, you need to sit in our office all day and look busy. The government doesn't give away money for free, you know.

One of the reasons that the government is so excited about expanding the project is that so many people have dropped off the roles entirely, without actually taking part in the project. It's assumed that all those people were getting funds fraudulently. No effort is made to find out what was actually going on.

OK, so you're a Republican and think that's all a great idea, right? Well, let me clue you in... I have a nice degree from UC Berkeley and another couple of degrees from the College of Alameda.I know many people who were on welfare and in college. If they had admitted to every piece of money that came into their hands from one source or another, they wouldn't have received the services and financial help they got. They also would not have had enough money to eat or pay rent, much less go to school. If you were at a community college, you had to claim that you were getting a "professional certificate" so that you could get cash aid from welfare, even though you knew quite well that your plans were to go on to a four year school and get your BA. BA's, apparently, are luxuries, and inappropriate for the poor. Of course, if you are a student and a parent and you also work, you can lose the "Medi-cal" medical insurance for your kids if you admit to all the money you are bringing in. Of course, the money wouldn't actually be enough to pay for medical insurance, but that doesn't matter. Rules is rules.

Do you want to solve the problems of poverty? Start by listening to poor people. Find out what their issues are. Find out what help they think would help them get on their feet. Poor people are not children that you have to manage in a patronizing way. They are adults. Respect them, and you might find it a lot easier to give them a hand out of poverty.

Is it good to help the poor find jobs? Sure! But this isn't a one size fits all solution, and forcing people into jobs outside the house isn't always in the best interests of the individual, the family, or society. (Got a rise in crime among the youth? Oh, wait, we sent all the moms and grandmas to work so no one is home to raise the kids. Damn!)