Who do they think we are, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? You can’t just take away our pizza and expect us to stop fighting.
Blog
-
A Strange Week
I’m a little thrown off right now. Things just don’t feel normal. It’s probably because so many things are different this week.
I am in Santa Clara for three days this week. Yesterday, I woke up at 5:55, took the bus to work, got a couple things, took the bus to Caltrain, took Caltrain to Santa Clara, and took VTA light rail to Foundry Networks headquarters. And then sat in a class for 8 hours and did almost the reverse on the way home.
Also yesterday, I started another diet. It is my “sprint to the end” diet. Since being about 167 pounds (and that one marvelous day when I was dehydrated and the scale read 165) I have put on about 5 pounds and am back to 172. I want to make a habit of completing my New Year’s resolutions, so my goal is to lose 7 pounds by December 23. That is about a pound every four days. So I’ll be cold turkey from the following until that point (except for one night with some friends, which was already being planned):
– red meat. Just my luck – the caterers today at Foundry served meatloaf! No main course for me!
– sweets. Just my luck – All the soda and junk you want for free at Foundry!
– cheese. I <3 cheese.
– fried thingsSo yeah, that sudden shock to my body (I think it was mostly not having the fat content I am used to, but it may have been the sugar, too) gave me an annoying headache yesterday. It was no migraine, thankfully, just a run of the mill headache that happened to last the whole damn day.
And then last night after I got home from that long day I had to flesh out and practice my speech that I am giving on Chomsky’s ideas in speech class tonight. Another thing that was out of the ordinary.
And then today, so I can get to class on time tonight, I took City CarShare to Santa Clara. And let’s just say I don’t miss ONE BIT sitting in stop and go traffic. That has to be like the 7th circle of hell or something.
Tomorrow is the last day of training, and then Thursday and Friday should be back to normal with the usual wake up, work, do something after work (class, some event, etc.), go home, sleep, repeat routine. It may not be the most exciting thing in the world but it makes me less stressed, I think.
-
For Your Sunday Reading Enjoyment
Excellent article by Majorie Cohn – Preventing the Impending War on Iran
-
5%
I am reading A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I am really liking it. I’ve got a whole list of other books that I want to read that are listed in the book.
I’ve had a running theory in my head for a while that really only about 5% of people in a population will actively participate in politics and activism. Much of what I am reading backs this up (I’d love to find a study on this, though). But right now I am reading about the labor movement in the late 19th century, and it paints a different picture. Hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide regularly went on strike. So maybe a more complete picture will say that a much greater percentage of people will fight for things that clearly and directly affect them. Labor conditions one of these things, foreign wars are not. If true, this greatly affects strategy. For foreign wars, you’ll have to rely on great amounts of action by a small amount of people. So for the Iraq war a good strategy might be things like blocking war shipments or civil disobedience in the streets.
For issues that affect a great amount of people, you may be able to rely on much larger participation. A current issue that comes to mind that might benefit from this great participation is global warming. Maybe 10-20 years from now we will see general strikes and huge rallies.
-
Bike Ride
My buddy Peter is letting me long-term borrow his bike. It is a single-speed road bike. I definitely like it…I’d rather have a multi-speed bike, but beggars can’t be choosers!
Today I took the bike for its first serious ride. I’ve already bragged to a couple people about my ride…but I’ll post it here anyway. I mapped it out in Google Maps. From my apartment, to the main library, to SFSU, and back to my apartment. 17 miles in all! Very tiring, but it was nice, too.
I am looking forward to my next ride, although it may not be 17 miles. I think I’d like to ride along the coast. Also, I am not sure how practical the bike will be for trips longer than a couple miles, because I worked up a serious sweat. It was great, though, just getting to the main library to start with. It’s the fastest I have ever gotten there, I think, and by the time I got there I wasn’t terribly sweaty.
-
God Damn
It’s only Tuesday. It’s going to be a long week…Maybe it is just my speech that I have tonight for class that is making it seem long. Or maybe it is the remarkable speech that I saw on Sunday night.
More later. I’ve had a lot of stuff that needs to be written down, and not enough time to write it.
-
The American Public Scares Me
Really, I try to have confidence in the intelligence of the American public, but polls like this one really scare me and make me rethink my assumptions.
Twenty-eight percent believe the U.S. should wait to strike until after the next president is in office while 23% would favor a strike before the end of President Bush’s term. Another 29% said the U.S. should not attack Iran, and 20% were unsure.
-
STFU – The Finest Education Around!
I was telling Ben about my awesome new email address – stu@sfsu.edu – and he was saying it would be better if it was stu@stfu.edu. Well, now I have a new life goal, to start STFU – Southern Texas, Falfurrias University.
My main email address remains the same – stu@sfsu.edu simply forwards to it.
-
Your Democracy In Action
From Tuesday’s Democracy Now:
NBC Bars Sen. Mike Gravel From Democratic Debate
In campaign news, former Senator Mike Gravel is protesting a decision by NBC News to bar him from next Tuesday’s debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia. NBC said it made the decision in part because Gravel hadn’t raised over one million dollars. Gravel said “The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world’s leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation.”