a little red hen

OCCUPY supports homeowners, sometimes singing

Every few days Portland Occupier sends a message.  It is always a reading challenge with its absence of paragraphing in the email form.   Here in a more readable way is "Saving the Home of Angelah Hill," [photo by Paul] about an employed, registered nurse who has run an adult care home in Portland, Oregon for over 10 years.

In 2008, her income dropped "through no fault of her own," and her home has been in and out of foreclosure since then according to this report.  While I struggled to put the pieces together, it was not hard to appreciate the post's description of racist practices by banks.  In this case it was Wells Fargo.

What I expected to read was not there:  what Occupy Portland plans to do to support Ms. Hill.  In other cities, the Occupy groups have been pro-active. Detroit, the 18th worst city for foreclosures in the U.S. (down from its #1 spot in 2008) has more than 70,000 unoccupied homes.  This week, according to Think Progress, with efforts from Moratorium Now, Occupy Detroit and Homes Before Banks, a family won back their home;  the bank accepted the family's revised offer to buy back their home.

 On the Rachel Maddow Show tonight an earlier effort in October 2011, was featured about a group known as  Oranizing for Occupation brought along women and men, black and white, to sing "Listen Auctioneer" in a Brooklyn foreclosure court.  Some were arrested.  Only one of four foreclosures took place that day.

 

Again last week, in a detailed post from the Village Voice via Occupy Las Vegas, (please do not ask me to explain) more song by many more advocacy organizations (and their supporters sang in a Brooklyn, New York  courthouse-- "driving the police crazy." Among the recently organized supporters Housing is a Human Right and  Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE).

Many thanks to the blog, The Faculty Lounge, for the words to "Listen Auctioneer."  Let's learn them, Portland:

Mrs. Auctioneer, all the people here

we're asking you to hold off the sales right now.

We're going to survive but we don't know how.

A complete rendition below, music with words, from Organizing for Occupation, New York City residents from the "activist, academic, religious, homeless, arts, and progressive legal communities who have come together to respond to the housing crisis."

 

 

Urban Gardening: minus land & muscle?

Back in the day when I was  East Coast correspondent for  "Worm Digest" and connecting with red wiggler worms in our New York City apartment, the number one question people would ask:

  What do you do with the compost?

Second most asked was by those with some knowledge of compost possibilites:

Do you have a balcony?  [for indoor plants in spring and summer]

Think about the mentality of New Yorkers--and many city dwellers--around Question One.  It's all about collecting stuff and getting rid of it rather than re-using it.  Environmental consciousness-raising needs to look at the questions asked.  Often these focus on why would a person do something that creates more work for him/her?   [photos: myself wearing knit red worm in NYC kitchen taling about kitchen composting & famous Wormware visiting the Grand Canyon]

Question Two (I had neither balcony nor houseplants) continues to have relevance for me in conversations with  folks in the sustainability world.  Portland, Oregon, my final home, is very big with the S word and its many applications. At the Saturday Farmers Market at Portland State, the big one, I volunteered for a few hours in connection with their observance of  National Food Day, officially Monday, October 24.

Carolyn White, PSU instructor for "Food Affairs,"  another Chiron class (student designed and led) I'm taking, was in charge.  The text for the course, "Menu for the Future," has been developed by NWEI (Northwest Earth Institute) in a way to encourage discussion. Articles by leading writers on food and its production are followed by questions:

Michael Pollan struggles with actually eating his Monsanto potatoes....Would you feel obligated to tell guests these were what they were being served?

Most essays are thoughtful and important. Missing for me is the urban piece:  that's where most live and when your only choice is a large supermarket, how do buy more organic foodstuffs.

Farmworker Housing Development Corp (FHDC) was the table next to ours.  I had a chance to talk with Jaime Arredondo about their work to improve the living conditions of migrant and seasonal workers in Oregon.  The need is enormous for affordable housing; 500 wait in the mid-Willamette region for affordable apartments they build and manage.

The inclusion of FHDC for this event impressed me since I've not seen a comparable group at Union Square Greenmarket in NYC though the efforts through food initiatives --making their produce more accessible to people on food stamps and beyond their numerous sites--have increased in the last few years. You can sign the petition HERE to ask Congress to "fix America's broken food system."  Fair conditions for food and farm workers is one the organizers goals.

Recent college grad (left) purchased "Menu for the Future" for her environmental work in Salem, Oregon, where she recently moved.  She is the umpteenth person I've met who finds the state capitol not too exciting.  Similar reports  on Desparately Seeking Salem  when first read  last year but that blogger seems to find more possibilities lately.  Maybe she can connect with this newcomer...not easy being green, as the saying goes.

Urban Farm Collective table with handmade sign and straightforward tee-shirt.  Patient woman there told me about senior housing in north Portland with its own community garden and tried to tell me there had to be a way for me to grow my own food.  People here not used to hardcore urbanites who are also challenged to bend much.  Make contact if you're ready to sign on for the 2012 season.

Ron arrived with our Zabar cart filled with veggies from Grow Portland, a group we met last year, admired their work developing small, city-owned plots for farming.  Supported at the start by the "seeding change for small businesses," of Northwest Mercy Corps they had funding to work with women and men from many countries--Bhutan was one--who had spent too many years waiting in refugee camps.  They also have expanded to help  small scale growers become part of CSAs (community-supported agriculture), are looking for more to add the coming year.

Being around all this on-the-ground sustainability, seeing how many young people are drawn to it, I enjoyed an energy boost.  I got this nifty button from the young women (where are the men...occupying portland?) at the table for  Food & Water Watch,  folks like Carolyn Wright, you and me, who think we must demand that Congress puts together a Fair Farm Bill.  Next session, people!

Support fair conditions for food and farm workersSupport fair conditions for food and farm workersSupport fair conditions for food and farm workersSupport fair conditions for food and farm workersSupport fair conditions for food and farm workersSupport fair conditions for food and farm workers

 

Grandparenting from far away

Next month we travel to New York to see Roxie, Leanne, and Nick again as we did in December.  It does not get easier to have these long spaces between times. 

This is one of my favorite photos as she walked down our hall.  I found the basket for our picnic on the roof in the Thrift Shop where we live.  Twice a week volunteer residents run the place.  The money goes to the Terwilliger Foundation which supports residents whose money runs out--which can happen as we live longer--particularly for single women.

Skype, as others have discovere, helps.  In December, Roxie still had her beautiful long hair. 

But last month, they were gone--as seen in this photo I took while we talked about this and that,  held up objects that might entertain her, and saw her latest drawings.

It is family life in the new world of electronic innovaton...and a good thing, even if not perfect.

Transforming Enemies into Friends: Cyprus Friendship Program

Earlier this week, Ron and I had an unusual experience.  A notice with the provocative title, "Transforming Enemies into Friends," appeared on bulletin boards where I live and gave a brief descrpition of the Cyprus Friendship initiative for teenagers from that troubled country.

The 90-minutes  program was a boost for the 75 senior Americans in the meeting room, all of us overstimulated by bad news on the economy, the future of social security, the British tabloid mess.

Six young women, 16 and 17 years old, participants in this ambitious international program, told why it has been important for them to be far from their own country for a one-month stay with host families in Portland.

Three of them are from Turkish Cyprus, three from Greek controlled Cyprus.  It was painful to hear how they have to live their lives where the two factions do not interact, the consequence of a war 37 years ago.  To get a sense of the ethnic division in Cyprus, a quick look at this map makes it clear that there are two distinct parts--yellow and white.  Each considers the other the enemy.

Each of the girls in the photo is sitting with her partner from "the other side" she has lived with for the past month. They spoke eloquently--and in excellent English-- about the pain of the split not only in their country but also in their families.   What had been the response among family and friends to their participation?

Some families were reluctant for their daughters to attend, even fearful or opposed.  Others were hopeful, like the teens themselves, that the opportunity to live in peaceful coexistence could be empowering for the girls and a model for a better future for Turks and Cypriotes.  How powerful social media are around the world was brought home by the young woman at the right end of the table.  On Facebook, yes, they are on Facebook, she could not believe the harsh reactions of some of her friends:  she was equated with the enemy.

What she learned is that her partner in the program would be more of a friend in her future than some of these naysayers at home. All of them want to return here for college which they find "very expensive."

What struck them most about peers in America?  That family ties were not as strong as theirs.  They were proud of the connection they had to their own families, most of whom have spent generations struggling with ethnic conflict.

After their presentations, the girls were eager to talk with us old people.  There's a surprise! Ron and I explained that the United States had its own history of people at odds with one another for reasons as unreasonable as those in Cyprus.  Immediately, two girls spoke about their visit to Canada and learning how badly the native population had been treated by white explorers in earlier times.  They were quite startled and wanted  explanation when Ron remarked, "You know, we are all immigrants here."

Being in their presence lifted our spirits away from local or national concerns.  All of us in the room expanded by sharing their hopefulness about the future.

HASNA, the sponsoring organization has a number of other programs for women, water and agriculture in Turkey.   Their peace-building ograms in Cyprus began in 2001; there are other efforts directed to women, water and agriculture in Turkey.   Support is needed with donations and for American families to hosting pairs of girls and boys in cities around the U.S., explained in detail at the Cyprus Friendship Program.

 

Food thoughts mid-20th century...and now

How I wish some of the retirement "authorities" would talk about the hidden danger of too much time on our hands.  Especially parents, now grandparents.

Guilt runs amook.  On the other hand, on a more upbeat note, I've explored the  possibilities for latelife shifts as we head toward the last frontier.  One that may last longer than we once thought.  Personally, ten years ago an expiration date of 80 felt like enough.  Approaching that marker, I now want to push it ahead.

 What does this have to do with "food" and "retirement" you might reasonably ask.

  Eating and preparation of meals has changed dramatically since we moved to Portland less than two years ago.   The local food culture, the emphasis on locavorism, has been a ethic easy  to pursue while not so much in New York City.

Cooking classes at Bob's Red Mill have been far more accessible moneywise/timewise/accessibilitywise than in our former home.Many, many farmers' markets and thoughtful vendors.  And some years back, strolling through the bountiful magazine section at Powell's Books, I discovered Gastronomica, the journal of food and culture--another link?

All roads appear to lead to Portland but is there more, some kind of epiphany-not-noticed encountered after 75?  Food is something that everyone  will talk about:  the latest restaurant someone's discovered, intense color of kale in the local market, less meat consumption, quinoa and how to pronounce correctly.  

With the help of Jeanne P, another  quite food enthusiast and native Oregonian, a new group was begun where we live in June 2010.  "Food for Thought" (FFT) we named it.

Georgia V, a resident, agreed to talk about how she came to write three cookbooks with two others working with her at the local Kitchen Kaboodle.  Here's Georgia, left in photo, at the first of a series of Potlucks, an additional food-focus event, that were an outcrop from FFT.

The monthly FFT  discussions have ranged from "Cooking for One or Two" to reflections by Joyce H, a 92 year old resident, a WWII Wave officer who became a Home Ec teacher in 1947 in the Portland Public Schools.  Titled "Home Ec:  What Martha Stewart Learned," the session included this 1955 YouTube, a 1955 film, "Why Study Home Economics?"   

When I first watched it, seemed quaint.  Then I reconsidered and find it very sound.  Except for that tired notion of preparation for wifehood, there's more about careers and personal relationships.  We need to bring it back to middle schools with a re-configured curriculum that includes material  about  housing.  In the 1980s, I used an excellent text, Self, Space & Shelter by Patricia J. Thompson,  a feminist home economist, for an Urban Housing  class at Morgan State in Baltimore.  Sadly, my copy was lost in transition and is out of print--and the course is no longer offered.

 

*Make Hats NOT War* Portland Peace Rally

If you were not a card-carrying member of one of the 60 or so supporting organizations,  Saturday's observance of year EIGHT of the Iraq war might have passed you by.  Having chosen our final home (without fully realizing that it was the exact correct place to live), it turns out that the woman in this photo lives in the apartment on the floor under ours.  A longtime member of WILPF, she--slightly older than me--helps me understand the ins and outs of many things Portland.

We took the bus together downtown to Pioneer Square to the rally.  As you know, the day was auspicious as the start of another "American war," this time in Libya.  Endless war unarguably is the chosen model of the ruling class in this United States.  The night before, using the idea of what we might do rather than make war, I gathered images for small signs for Ron and me to carry, "Make Hats Not War."

The most impassioned speaker was a young Iraq vet.  He literally screamed!  Should have been the only presenter.  Following him was Barbara Dudley of the Oregon Working Families Party.  A seasoned political figure, she had difficulty speaking and mirrored my own feelings as she struggled to highlight WFP's efforts to have initiate a state bank in Oregon. 

[A few days later in another demonstration Veterans for Peace came back to Pioneer Square, built a mock prison cell to protest the treatment of Wiki Leaks' Bradley Manning.]

Marginally covered by the conservative daily paper, The Oregonian, the March 19 Peace Rally attracted hundreds of people who then took their banners and signs on a walk up Broadway.  It was mostly an older crowd.  Why not:  we are the ones who actually recall a time the U.S. was not at war, maybe three years between WWII and Korea.  Perhaps younger folks do not believe that it could happen again?

"A Knitter's Home Companion," my snowy day read

In the last couple of days, we've experienced snow-panic in Portland.  We're too new here to know how to assess the weather.  Yesterday, when many spoke of snow coming, the sky was so pretty in the late afternoon.  Why did Bob's Red Mill cancel our Cooking with Kamut class for today?

Because it was snowing early this morning.  Just enough to be picture-worthy.  Then we heard about people living north of us who'd had to wait hours for buses struggling with serious accumulation.  By 11 a.m., what appears in the photo at the right (from my window) was gone.

But wait...early afternoon and here it comes again.  As I write, snow and sun, nothing seems to stick on the roads.  But who can tell?  A good day to think about cooking and knitting and talk about my friend's new book, "A Knitter's Home Companion: a heartwarming collection of stories, patterns, and recipes." [*updated link shows color photos not in review copy]

Michelle Edwards and I met (in the internet sense) via her knitting essays for Lion Brand's online newsletter.  Her thoughtfulness and her rounded, engaging illustrations, both evident at that link, led me to write her.  A conversation began and took several turns over the past six years.  I discovered her childrens' books, favorites of my grandchildren now, and she joined a project of mine.

But back to her new book.  When Michelle first talked to me about what she planned to write, I was intrigued--yarn and food.  But how to bring it off?  She has taken her time and produced a small book I'm glad to own and would be pleased to give as gift to another knitter--or someone who wants a recipe for potato latkes or roasted root vegetables.

When the book first arrived, I was struck by its difference from  most contemporary knitting books.  It's a bit old-fashioned,  takes time to lead the reader along the paths of Michelle's life from upstate New York to kibbutz to wife and mother of three mostly grown children in Iowa City.  Reading along, trying to be disciplined and go page by page, I was distracted by the "Good Karma Slippers."  She wrote the pattern to problem-solve for a friend who wanted to duplicate knit ones  bought in India.

Did she know I wanted something lightweight, other than bedroom slippers, to wear indoors?   Turkish cast-on and knitting in the round on two needles are new challenges.  Time to go to my local yarn place because I want these; maybe  other knitters will want to knit them too.

In one of our earliest exchanges, Michelle shared her concern about her children's learning about safe sex.  Soon after, I asked her if she would add a pattern to the Knit a Condom Amulet project.  She surprised me with her yarn,  100% Corn Silk from Iowa.  Instructions for all seven are in the blog.

If I were still living in New York, I could finally meet Michelle Edwards on March 10 at her book signing in Lion Brand Yarn Studio on West 15th Street. It's a beautiful store opened three years ago by this 130 year old company known for its community-minded owners. I'll be with her in spirit with memories of generous people in the yarn world we share connections with--Melanie Falick, publisher of "A Knitter's Home Companion," whose interest generated enthusiasm about my Knit One Red Worm and David Bluementhal of Lion Brand who gave me many skeins of red chenille for that project.

Tomorrow--snow's melted again--I'm off to get cotton bamboo for those slippers.

 

 

 

 

"Hamlet in Love," dinner with Leartes: Silverton!

Last week East coast people looking over our retirement community asked if we missed NYC.  Of course, we'd like to see our Roxie more, even on Skype (hint to her parents).  And there's a certain Jewish aura to the streets and citizens missing here.

But for having a good time, in addition to our local family, many possibilities keep springing up.  Seems more accessible than New York.  One has to look.  Last spring we met Carol Storke and Michael Smith at the intermission of  August Wilson's, "Radio Golf," presented in a converted black church in Portland's Albina neighborhood.  Talking quickly, as New Yorkers are prone to do, we learned we had much in common from our urban pasts.  One big difference:  they are now farming in Silverton, Oregon.  We heard about the town a couple of years ago from blogger, Lydia at Writerquake but had not been there yet.

Michael is a playwright, has written more than twenty of them--and poetry (read on his blog).  His past includes time as a theatre critic  for the Village Voice, a once-wonderful free weekly in New York.  Like many other publications, it barely resembles what we read eagerly in the 1960s and 70s when he was there.  We traveled to Silverton for his his latest, "Hamlet in Love" in a black box space at the local high school.

There was this brief summary in a Salem (state capitol) newspaper:

In this fresh take on Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet's father's ghost is only a voice in the young man's mind, and his suspicion that his uncle murdered his father proves not to be the case. His love for Ophelia blossoms, and no one dies.

Kristine Thomas, took time for a thoughtful interview with Michael for OurTownlive.com.  She drew out  more on why he felt compelled to reconfigure this particular Shakespearean drama.  "I don’t believe in ghosts so I don’t necessarily believe what happened in the play is true.”

We sat very close.  Young Hamlet (Kory Crozen), intense, saturnine, narcissistic--pulled us toward him in the first moments of the play.  We were convinced he was a little mad.  (He'd changed before I could get picture in authenic costume.)  So too was Alfred St. John Smith as his friend Laertes.  Ron was struck by how Alfred had been a light-hearted dinner companion then morphed a half hour later into Laertes (middle in photo)-- keeping all together for his good friend Hamlet.

Gertrude (Kelley Morehouse) gave a stately, measured performance and wore a terrific dress.  We learned afterward that she'd never been an actor before and came aboard late in rehearsals replacing someone who had to leave.  Claudius (Vere McCarty on left) cut a stately figure in an altered role for this up-dated view of Hamlet's story.  I entirely missed a picture of Ophelia (Dianna Bates)--and another gorgeous dress.

Draining the warlike and bloody aspects from the old story pleased me.  How Michael Smith pulled it off is for you to experience by taking a trip to Silverton (by November 14).  Hard metal seats; take pillows.

We can't promise a delicious chicken meal with potatoes and peas from the garden like the one Carol prepared for us but we saw several places around the town center that we'd like to try on another visit.

Along with a good number of tempting vintage stores with small objects we try not to buy.

 

Oregon Dystopia...can it happen here?

I sit at my computer, look over the top of the screen through windows facing a hillside in southwest Portland.  Neither Terwilliger Plaza, on a lower hill, nor the neighbors behind me have a front yard.  A few weeks ago it was a surprise to see the "Kitzhaber for Governor" sign.  It sits at the edge of Broadway (cannot get away from old connections); the red car waits for the light to change.

Mary Ellen of Xtreme English, at the epicenter of our government in Wash. D.C., alerts me about must-read articles.  Darlene's Hodgepodge in Tucson, Arizona, (tough place for a progressive to live) pumps out a steady stream of energetic posts on why Dems should unite.

And here I am, a newbie in the beautiful Northwest, trying to get a handle on the local scene.  If I were still in New York City, what would be the picture, so to speak, from my window onto Harlem?  Charles Rangel, longtime liberal congressman runs again as he faces censure.  For the past year, the state legislature--always dominated up upstate New York--has been in more disarray than usual with girlfriend abusers, deal-making guys who make a joke out of representative government.

In Oregon, the gubenatorial picture is cleaner than New York where a foul-mouthed Repub tries to outdo anything we have seen since the early 20th century.  The very polite Chris Dudley, a retired basketball player--no Bill Bradley here--is running against Democrat Kitzhaber.  Brand new to politics and infrequent voter, he has the decency to display exactly how clueless one can be with a Yale degree.  Practicing avoidance as political strategy, he has agreed to just one debate with his opponent.  Sensible decision as his repetoire is limited to   an endless tape loop (phrase read in local paper) of empty promises, four of them.

Our excellent senator, Ron Wyden, seems secure but in these last days of campaigning, his unknown opponent with a much smaller campaign funds hopes that "...an anti-Democrat tide will rise high enough to float him to victory."  Not a Tea Partier, his conservatism seems more of the traditional, smaller government Republican sort  until I read of his wish to "...carry out healthcare reform."

But something bothers me, as much as Mary Ellen and Darlene.  Oregon may seem more moderate in relation to other western states like California and Arizona.  Yet there is an undercurrent here, a dark history of isolationism that might get tapped into with the coming election.  Anna Griffin, a regular columnist in The Oregonian seems to read my mind in this morning's paper.  "Let's face it, Chris Dudley is not a very adept politician...But...[he] could be the Republican Party's next star."

Yikes, that was what I wrote in a comment at Xtreme English this very week.  Griffin points out that Kitzhaber has run a "weirdly lifeless campaign."  What a puzzle for a former Oregon governor who  had expanded the Oregon Health Plan. when he was in office and was an activist around many significant state issues.  Of course I'll vote for him.  Democrats in other states also appear lifeless--why didn't they try to find a reasonable Senate candidate in  South Carolina?

Oregon has a curious history:  both liberal (women achieved suffrage in 1912) and racist (the Klu Klux Klan settled and expanded in 1920s) and resolutely independent (a leader in using both mail-in ballots and ballot initiatives).  I'm hoping this Fall's election will be toward the better side of the state's utopian (more the "good place," than the "no place") past described by James J. Kopp in Eden within Eden:  Oregon's Utopian Heritage.

 

 

 

 

Blogging: Untapped Possibilities Envirowise?

My June 21  post elicited more comments than anything since my last picture of an adorable grandchild.  Thanks to all of you who validated my sense that there's an urge for each of us  to tell our environmental stories to one another and find validation that what we're doing is meaningful.  We are everywhere!

Jaykaym in Washington, D.C. suggested I watch the a documentary, "No Impact Man."  I read about the filmmaker in the New York Times  couple of years ago when we still lived there.  "Guy is writing a book," I said to spouse.  Otherwise why would you challenge your spouse to climb four flights of stairs in an NYC walk-up and schlep a two-year old, a dog, and packages at the same time.  Too much hubris.  I want to know how the family's no-impact efforts continue in their everyday life.  He does have a blog  by the same name.  It's worth following for its detailed focus on possible citizen environmental actions.

Hattie at her web acknowledges that some times ideas from another culture, Japanese soapdish from berry box, may not work elsewhere.  Readers in exotic lands like Hawaii now have a new way to grow orchids!

Kay in Ohio joins the keep-using-them club around plastic bags.  Have to find out what Freda in Scotland means about "the 50mls round trip."  Berry box as bath toy might work with grandkids who, unlike mine, enjoy low key bath times.

Darlene in Arizona wonders if her efforts are enough.   It's not "tiny," Darlene.  Only seems that way because the environmental movement, the U.S. government, your neighbors have not discovered ways to form community around small, individual steps.

How I envy Anne in Washington (the state).  I live in an apartment; outdoor clothes drying not an option.  Sigh.

Beth Reid, a neighbor of mine here in Portland, Oregon, offered a good idea about buying the net bags--much less spendy than mine from Whole Foods!  Another neighbor wondered if our retirement community might not buy biodegradeable bags in bulk that residents could then purchase at modest cost.

Interesting  "papier-mache/wooden berry boxes" idea from m.e. (Xtreme English)  in Washington, D.C. environs.  Could only find these wooden ones which could take a lot of re-use.   Maybe Beth knows where we can get a dozen of them...talk our neighbors into  starting a mini-trend at nearby Farmers Market.

Why does everything seem more sensible in Canada?  Marja-Leena Rathje in British Columbia reminds me how I always wonder why the U.S. is not more open to what we might learn.  Canadian Broadcasting Corporation long a favorite of mine.

Surprise from Joared in Southern California:  she's blogging again!  And takes the prize for being a "do everything" approach to improving the universe through personal effort.

Two days later Carrie Sturrock in the Oregonian seemed to be reading my mind.  She writes a Friday column, PDX Green.    "Changing Minds, One Step at a Time" was her theme.  Her model was the impressive effort made by Portland's Williamette Pedestrian Coalition to move its office on foot (by foot?) via an informal parade of walkers.  Yes, this city is a great place for those of us not on bicycle...more later.

[Food poster at the top of the page from a link at Marion Nestle's blog, Food Politics.  Pennsylvania promoted these ideas during World War One.]