Category Archives: government

People Forgetting People

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Iraq War soldiers and bombing

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It was 2004. The Iraq war had waged on for about a year. I, and my friends, [we] were still in shock over all that happened. He hadn’t listened! We protested. We wrote. We petitioned. We called. We bitched. We complained.

We didn’t want another Vietnam. We can’t do that to our people again. We can’t do that to our brothers and sisters. We can’t let them suffer for a cause, for a rich man’s war, that isn’t really about freedom at all.

So why is he doing this? Why? Why is this Yale graduate, son of an oil man, baseball team owner, married to a librarian enforcing this war?

The simplest answer, and the most comfortable one for my little brain to wrap around, has been that he was simply taking care of those he cares about. On the surface, it seems that he cares about contractors making $6k to $10k per day more than soldiers without shoes. On the surface, it would seem an oil company was more important than the people working for the company.

I related it to my own cirlce. I want my family and my close friends taken care of. I want them healthy. I want them to have secure jobs that give them benefits to help ensure good health. I want them to have access to clean, healthy food. I want them to be educated on healthful (clean air, clean water, clean soil) ways to take care of their families. I want them to have access to the American Dream, and not just the same station in life in which they were born.

My wants certainly can’t be that different from Mr. Bush’s, can they? On that macro level. On that big, 50,000 mile high level. We all really want the same things. We want our loved ones to be taken care of.

The difference is who the loved ones are. And, someone, in this myriad tangled web of life, we forget about people we don’t care about.

Mr. Bush is an extreme, political example, but I hope it highlights what I see happening all over. Recently, I was a part of a conversation where it was argued that the only thing missing out of a particular sustainability equation was the Environment. I was shocked, since the conversation was about an organization that only does work in the environment. No where, though, were people mentioned. Not the people who do the work voluntarily. Not the people who get the details done to do the work. Simply, people were missing from this conversation, and no one recognized it.

Sustainability was put on hold the year I graduated from college. With bank, market, and housing crashes – all fell like dominoes after 2008, it’s as if we couldn’t focus on anything but that which was right in front of us. And, still, three years later we are reeling. We’re still trying to calm the frenzy around us in order to organize our lives and dream about the American Dream.

In the frenzy, the environment wasn’t forgotten. The Sierra Club is still doing their job. I”m not saying the environment doesn’t suffer, I’m simply saying it wasn’t forgotten. But, people were.

Wages dropped. Homes were foreclosed upon. Details were lost that made people homeless and lose their jobs. benefits were lost affecting the health of many.

People were forgotten.

You can’t have a balanced three-legged stool without people. You can’t have a true balanced Triple Bottom Line general ledger without people. You can’t have a world, without people.

I am dismayed that after all we’ve been through, we still take two steps back. I’m dismayed that people are still forgotten and the gap between the haves and have nots widens. I’m dismayed that people are forgotten.

But, as if by a miracle, a group has risen up and shouted to not forget us. My question, today, is this: Can the Occupy Movement get people to remember people?

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Regrets of a Stay at Home Mom

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Reading Time

My mother and Levi. Image by alexis22578 via Flickr

Reading the Price of Motherhood was depressing. This article further articulates the grim realities mothers face when life doesn’t go as planned. I choose to work because our society doesn’t give me the option of staying at home. I have school loans to pay. What if my husband got injured on the job and couldn’t work? What about my career aspirations of what I should do?

Yes, I choose to work. Yes, I would encourage you too, to work. Yes, I understand it’s all about choice. For me, the risk isn’t worth it.

http://www.salon.com/2011/01/06/wish_i_hadnt_opted_out/

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A Decade Gone

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Today, Sunday, September 11th marks the 10 year anniversary of when we, Americans, were attacked on our own soil. An event that hasn’t happened in a very long time. It was an event that shook our nation, divided our nation, and brought a city together. It is one of those moments in time where, if you experienced it, you know exactly what you were doing in that moment, no matter how much time passes. It was one of the moments in life when the world stopped turning.

I don’t remember the day of the week anymore, although I have a recollection it was a weekday. My boyfriend was over, and we had both worked the night before. I was swinging between midnight schedules and second shift schedules, and the night before was a second shift schedule. We had slept in late. My phone rang; it was my mother.

Why is that mothers, especially mine, are always the bearers of bad news?

She told me to turn on my TV to any news channel. I reminded her I didn’t have TV reception. She then instructed me, “Turn on your radio.” I did, while she told me that America had been attacked by terrorists. I was shocked. It wasn’t something anyone ever expected, any perhaps “average” citizen. We talked for a bit, and then my boyfriend and I listened to the radio where NPR commented and re-commented on the shocking, horrific events that happened and kept happening.

I was scheduled to work that afternoon, so life still had to go on. It was a beautiful, sunny, September day. The kind of crisp, lovely day that smells faintly of autumn. The temperature was perfect. The sky was very blue. All this beauty was overshadowed by this thing that happened so many miles away.

We had left for work early, and along the way, a motorist motioned that my tire was flat. We detoured, en route, to a tire store to get the tire repaired or replaced. Life went on.

Eventually, I made it to work, and naturally the only thing people could talk about was their shock and amazement at what had happened. I worked at a 4-diamond hotel, and even there we had a TV wheeled across the front desk so we could keep up on the news. On our cigarette breaks, the attack was the only thing we discussed. One chef commented how fake it all looked since we are all primed on Hollywood explosions. It was ironic that this real, very real thing, looked like an imposter.

Eventually, we tired of the news, in its repeating morbid fashion. My friends and I were horrified when our President suggested that if we didn’t abhor the terrorists and agree to fight them, then we were against America too. Couldn’t we grieve for the loss but show mercy towards those who did such a grievous act? My Catholic Christian upbringing certainly didn’t sit in accordance with modern politics.

What followed was a decade of war, in this vain effort to “protect freedom.” This decade of known war is just a louder version of what we’ve done, certainly, since World War II. Always fighting conflict. My brain argues that it is to pull the wool over our eyes for what we really want. Now, in our dear country, we have politics that are even more divided where people still don’t talk about things that matter. Things that matter include making sure we’re all taken care of so we can do what we want with our lives. Things that matter include finding ways to live peacefully together. The rest of it doesn’t matter. We want to be around people who love us, but when we focus on fear, hate, and fighting we cannot focus on love.

Here we are, 10 years later. 10 years later with the memory still emblazoned in our recollection. 10 years later with no visible lessons learned, only parroting of the Old Testament where instead of turning the other cheek we take an eye for an eye. When will we learn to forgive? When will we realize that, as Father Mark preached this morning, by drinking the rat poison ourselves, the rat never dies? We do. We die.

I hope our children will evolve smarter, more compassionate than we are. I hope that our children will have the mercy necessary to fix the problems we have created. I hope that we can end these endless wars and simply be… peaceful.

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Controlled Capacity

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Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire

“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” This is one of my favorite adages. I love planning. I love thinking about upcoming tasks, comparing old tasks undone, all to move towards a common goal. While studying urban planning at Portland State University, I learned to believe that planning was even more important in urban settings (rural too). If we want to create and support a vision of our place, then we need to plan to manage the growth (or decline, think Flint, Michigan) that will inevitably happen. Given this framework, I think my friend was a little surprised when I told her I had a gut level reaction against Arcade Fire.

She asked me if I’d listened to them yet. She was letting me borrow a CD. I confessed that no, I hadn’t because well… they sort of irked me.

“I heard them on Soundstage once,” I explained. I thought back to that episode where the large band was sweating over microphones and the stage, all very animated in their own right. I’ve known musician types, and there is something about their arrogant personalities… that holier than thou because I play music attitude that really just bugs me. And, it really bugs me when it sweats all over the stage.

I had never heard of Arcade Fire prior to listening to this Soundstage episode, so I looked them up like any self-respecting internet user would do. Naturally, I turned to Wikipedia, where it was kindly explained Arcade Fire caps their concerts. They don’t sell more than, say 3,000 tickets per show (I don’t remember the number and Wikipedia isn’t saying anything about this memory.)

The article further explained some restrictions the band put in place to control their grow, their numbers, and as such have become a cult classic revolving around the lead singer. I recall there was something catchy about their music but it didn’t hit to my core like say, Sinner Man or At Last. It was catchy. It was modern. It was clearly very popular.

Now, maybe it’s because I was never a popular kid. Maybe this hearkens back to some childhood jealously, but something about this just rubbed me the wrong way.

When I explained this to my friend, after she argued isn’t a good thing that they are controlling their growth and not selling out to the Man (record labels), she thought, “Oh, you mean, like they are capping their concerts with the premeditated assumption they will be popular?”

This was the closest set of words that explained the revulsion I felt.

But the group is popular. So, what’s so wrong, really, with the band exercising controlled growth, maintaining their vision, and doing what they love: playing music? Nothing really in the grand scheme of things. And, the irony is they are doing that which I actively advocate.

We have had a capped membership in my food club since we merged. Since March 2010, we have frozen our membership at about 60 families. As people shift, we make room for more, but that’s it. We can’t handle more than 60 families with our current structure, and now we like our structure. So, really, what’s so bad about capped capacity?

I think I better listen to that album (The Suburbs) now.

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There’s no such thing as work-life balance

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Stuck in Traffic

Image by alexis22578 via Flickr

Her pregnancy claim was rejected, but all agree it doesn’t work. So, I hear that the conversation can’t be about discrimination but rather how we can make something work.

Family not withstanding, I have a lot of interests. Often, it feels like my brain is just going, going, going (except now, where I really need a vacation, most days I’m just surviving). So, when I’m not feeling overwhelmed, I have a lot of interests in which I take part. It started when I was staying at home and needed something to stimulate my brain. Then, I had commitments I had to follow through with once the job started. Even after some of these commitments get completed, I’m not going to stop doing other things. So, when I’m at work, emails need to be answered, problems solved, and maybe even a little research done.

While I’m at work, I’m thinking about all the work tasks and how to manage xyz event, keep on top of abc calendar, and complete the daily tasks that never make it to the list. I’m also thinking about my husband how his day is going, is he going to be hungry when he gets home, is he going to go for a longer bike ride, when did we schedule his chiropractor appointment. I”m thinking about my son hoping he’s enjoying his day at school, wonder if he had an allergic reaction, but I didn’t receive a phone call, and what thing we might have planned for the evening. I’m thinking about what to make for dinner this night and the next. I’m considering what other foodstuffs need planning. I’m thinking about the bathroom and kitchen floors that need to be scrubbed along with the laundry that needs to be folded and put away. I’m thinking about all the stuff in my house that needs to be organized thankful that my space at work is. At work, I’m thinking then about the files that miraculously aren’t that organized and how they should be but what an in-depth project it is that I don’t have time for.

When I was home, not working, I was in a rut. Sure, I helped start a food club and I volunteered and participated with my church. I sat on the board at the Community Alliance of Tenants. Work is (environmental) stewardship. Church is spirituality. Food club is food security, foodsheds, local, organic, sustainable. The Community Alliance of Tenants is housing, empowerment, education. Home, is home, is family, is life. So, all these things fit important interests, values, core to my soul. How can I give any one up?

I am finding it’s near impossible, and often, lately, they collide. They run out of balance. So, even though this article is in part about the unfairness of this woman’s claim being denied, it is something many of us face daily. And, I don’t think a law suit is how we’re going to handle it for the better paradigm shift. Not a law suit about discrimination, that is.

Instead of anti-discrimination suits, we need our laws to change to make it easier to accept this imbalance. We need better child care allowances. We need part-time weeks that allow for health care to be offered at the same rate as full. We need work place flexibility that understands life happens outside of the cube farm. I believe we all have the right to reach our potential in a supported way, but the way we organize ourselves often gives undue challenges to that cause. We want what’s best for our kids, and sometimes we need to make sure we have what’s best for us to give what’s best for them.

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Nickle & Dimed

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Getting drawn on.

Image by alexis22578 via Flickr

I read it shortly after it came out, on recommendation from my lifelong teacher friend. Personal experience confirmed and has confirmed Barbara Ehrenreich‘s reporting in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. When I participated in Project Closeup in 1995, our week long steward confirmed another bit I already knew to be true: most women get out of welfare by getting married. Although our prospects weren’t much better even after that event. If a strong middle class is part and parcel to what makes this country, this world, great – what sort of disservice to we provide when we strengthen the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom of the economic ladder?

I was born on a peninsula whose industry was dominated by mining and logging. Driving through, you see the contrast of depression and boom by the dilapidated farm houses and new McMansion log cabins. The shoreline resorts that are in disrepair now, decorate US2, whereas when I was young they always seemed to be a in state with a fresh coat of paint. Roads were worse off than I ever remember, with potholes and jagged pave jobs traveling with you as you drive. That’s Michigan now. A state dominated by industry, and when the resources are used up and the jobs go overseas — what’s left?

Cover of

Cover via Amazon

When my father left, my mother, a then stay at home mom, remained to support her three children. She got retail jobs where she could, but with a high school education and one who was never on a white collar career path, the only real support option we had was welfare. We were on foodstamps and public housing until my mother remarried. Even then, our prospects weren’t much better given the large family we had. Now we had free or reduced lunches to compliment our daily schooling. My own, more recent experience, also confirms the more humiliating aspect of asking for help.

Nationally, according to Kaaryn Gustafson of the University of Connecticut Law School, “applying for welfare is a lot like being booked by the police.” There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting, and lengthy interrogations as to one’s children’s true paternity. The ostensible goal is to prevent welfare fraud, but the psychological impact is to turn poverty itself into a kind of crime.

I’ve confessed to some people I work with that asking for help is one thing I have a hard time with. Is it any wonder, when thinking back to these other experiences — especially when one is at their most needy. When you’re a kid on food stamps or free/reduced lunch, you know the social stigma that goes with it. Other children talk, tease, about the lessor parents who basically can’t support their children and have to be on welfare. A term said with such derision that only the dullest person could miss it. Now, add the process onto it, and you have more humiliation than some people can handle.

We handled it because we had to. My mother had three children, then 4/5 to support after remarrying. We have our one son and ourselves, and with some chronic health problems to boot. Thankfully my husband was able to find a union job so we could get out of that economic depression. But, sometimes, I feel like we’re still on the brink, like when my husband back went out just three weeks ago. His job is manual labor. What happens should his body fail him, permanently?

Poverty shouldn’t be viewed as a crime. We all have a right to be here. And, we all have a responsibility to one another. These problems we face weren’t created in a day, and they won’t be solved in a day. But, we have to collectively take part in their change. We owe it to ourselves, our fellow neighbors, and our children.

Source

How America turned poverty into a crime Barbara Ehrenreich on Salon

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An Open Letter on Food Security

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Milk & Honey Bread

Image by alexis22578 via Flickr

Dear Friend,

I co-coordinate a food buying club in my neighborhood. This idea arose from many things, one the example is the one set by my grandparents who always had access to local food through their garden, animal husbandry, and local grocery co-op. Mostly, though, I do this because food quality for my small family is very important. I also do this is a way to increase food security for everyone.

Nary a day goes by where we don’t hear about another food recall. These food recalls largely involve large industrial food complexes, like confined animal feed operations. I don’t buy from those operations. I buy directly from the farmer. My family eats fairly locally and seasonally. We learn how to preserve our food and make things from scratch, like bread — a lot like my grandparents learned post World War II. We develop relationships with our farmers, our distributors, our producers of the food we eat. We do this to increase our food security. We know where our food comes from. We visit the farms. We know the names of our farmers’ children. We are invested in them, and they are invested in us.

But that investment is being threatened. The City of Portland has hosted several meetings to revise the food zoning laws for our locale. Their recommendations are to increase the hurdles one has to go through to have access to local food.

This is a problem. A big problem. And, I need your help to tell them it’s a problem. 

Find out more about the city’s plans and please take the survey. Please tell the city they are going in the WRONG direction for CSAs & Buying Clubs. Tell them it matters to you because food security matters to you. Tell them having access to local food is important to you. And, most importantly, pass this message on and have your friends and family take the survey.

Thank you for your help.

In food!

Michelle Lasley
community advocate | green coach | nurturer
www.michellelasley.com

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Wrapping up the Price of Motherhood

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Playing with Toys at Grandma's
Playing with Toys at (great) Grandma’s house. Image by alexis22578 via Flickr.

A relative, a co-worker, a friend. All women. All of varied ages. All facing the same problem when their husbands pass away: not enough income to maintain their standard of living. That is, they will no longer receive their husband’s pension and/or social security income so the homes in which they raised their children will have to be sold. They will have to move into something smaller and more manageable or with relatives in order to afford basic things like shelter, food, clothing.

Sure, it’s not the worst thing that can happen in life. Life is full of changes, and we as humans have to do our job, which is to deal with those changes. But, that’s not really the right question. The question, more than is it fair, is, “Is this right?” Is it right to treat mothers this way?

This occupation, sometimes gifted by choice, sometimes not, often touted as the most important in the whole wide world — is one of the most relegated. The job to be least considered, understood, or recognized.

In a nutshell, it can be tough being a mom. You are gifted with these delightful beings, who you coach day in and day out to be respectable human beings. Collectively with a team of mothers, with whom you may or may not interact, and how does society pay you for joining in this social contract? By kicking you to the philosophical curb.

My mother applied for a credit card so she could have an easier time trying a small Mary Kay business when I was in middle school. She was listed as the secondary account holder on the joint account shared with my stepfather. This was her only bank account. The bank told her she didn’t count and couldn’t get a credit card.

I’m not an advocate of credit cards, but I am an advocate for financial independence. You may recall my distaste expressed in various posts about our patriarchal society. We live in a man’s world, and while many women before us have made incredible strides to break the glass ceiling or put 18 million cracks into it, our jobs are not done. This is what The Price of Motherhood calls us to do – keep on keeping on. We need to stand together, rise together, be moms together and support each other with our collective group wisdom to change this paradigm in which we’ve operated for too long.

When I think back to who has been there for me, it has always been my mom. My mother cries with me, talks with me, hugs me. She always has. Not my father. Not my step-father. Not my grandfathers. Not even my beloved uncles. My mother. This feisty, sassy, amazing woman who holds her opinions close, states her mind, and fights for the little guy in every avenue which which she works. She sacrificed so I could find out what my path is by talking on state aid, menial jobs, and not buying glasses for over a decade so we could clothe ourselves. This is what motherhood calls woman to do: sacrifice.

Now, I sit as a mother, and dammit, I want my sacrifices (collective and individual) recognized. We don’t sleep, we don’t buy, we eat what we don’t want for our husbands and our children. And, how does our social contract pay us back? Taking away our livelihood if our husbands die before us. Not allowing us the option for financial freedom if we’re listed as joint on a bank account. Punishing us into welfare if we decide our partners aren’t really the right match.

Do not mistake me. This is not a pity party. The Price of Motherhood should be a collective wake up call. We need to band together and make change. We need to demand more mothers in politics (and not just the ones with 28 foster children). We need to ensure our interests are heard. Why? Because what’s best for mom is best for the family, the nation, the world.

Other Sources

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I said what?

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It was a busy afternoon at my house. Frontier had to be sorted. Eggs and meat were being picked up. My husband was figuring out what was wrong with the Bravada. Levi was dancing in and out of the house, playing with his toys and his new friend. It was busy. Then, I cooked dinner while bringing a print job out as it finished. Talked more. Navigated around the small fry more. Dodged the husband in the kitchen while cooking as he would come in to wash his grease laden hands. Then, we ate dinner. Then it was calm. Then a face appeared through my back door. It looked familiar, but different. The night was such a blur of activity, I introduced myself. Then I blinked. Then I looked. Wow. It wasn’t just a familiar face but a good friend!

How perceptions change.

So, this good friend and I go to the back porch and chat. Our club received a new solicitation from the city, wanting to explore zoning issues with buying clubs. I had emailed back, explaining what we knew of other club problems and how we tried to mitigate that before it became a problem. Thus far, I haven’t heard back from the city. They want to see operations this next week.

My friend was restating how her conversation with her husband went. She explained, “Then, I think of what you say, about making sure we don’t operate out of fear.” She proceeded to explain a brilliant plan of educating and encouraging through empowerment instead of using a knee jerk reaction to guide policy.

I was puzzled. I mean, I know I think these things, but I’m not always sure how much gets out of my head and into conversation. Do you know what I mean? Isn’t it amazing sometimes when people parrot back your words and you sound darn right smart?

Okay. I don’t mean to sound arrogant. I think I’m clever and funny, but so what. I was really just amazed. These words my friend stated, even as she added I had said them, I was thinking that it was some of HER typical wisdom. (Because she’s a smart cookie.)

My mother has done that to me a few times, and my husband did once too. Michelle had this idea or said this thing. Usually, I can’t even remember the incident. I know what they are saying lines up with my values, but with all my wonderful memories, I don’t recall saying specifically in their interpretation they words the parrot back.

I wish we could get more of that feedback — you know, how we affect people, how we touch their lives, realizing we have relevance. Do you know what I mean?

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