Don't they have the Internet in Alaska?

In a couple of weeks, my little map covered in red dots is going to be archived. It will have been a year since it was started and they have to start over. I've had around 8,000 visits in the last year and before the map went away, I wanted to document where the dots are.


The majority of visits are from the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia with a couple of other sizable dots in Iran (that's Sam's cousin!), India, and Indonesia (that's daysofturmoil).

Here’s where the rest of the dots appear with the notable absences in parentheses:

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Guyana, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexico (No Cuba)

Hawaii and Newfoundland (No Alaska)

South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Canary Islands, Guinea, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritius (all major cities or capitols of those countries) and Morocco

Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, (One dot in China), (Only two dots in Russia: Moscow and Siberia), (One dot in Kyrgyzstan and no other former Soviet “stans”)

Pakistan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan (No Afghanistan)

I find it fascinating. It's a potentially good indication of the prevalence of the Internet (or at least Blogger) around the world. In the case of China, it's especially indicative: only one dot for a country that has more Internet users than any other and for a blog that mentions China in 22 (make that 23) posts.

Eight products that I don't need

When I was in the UK, I stocked up on an over-the-counter lip cream for cold sores. It comes in a tiny tube and has 5% Acyclovir. Cold sores go away almost instantly with this cream which is available only by prescription in the U.S. I don't have a doctor and have only had health insurance about 6 of the 16 years that I've lived away from home. Needless to say, I won't pay for the doctor visit to get the prescription (that has to be represcribed every two years EVEN THOUGH herpes simplex is a very common virus that you can't get rid of) and can't afford to pay for the drug anyway.

In the U.S., there are no less than eight over-the-counter remedies for cold sores. All with a drug other than Acyclovir, and none of them work. I know because I've had cold sores since I was four and have tried everything. They don't have any of these "other" remedies in the UK because they don't NEED them. The one that works is available to everyone and it's cheap, cheaper even than our non-remedies. The cost of the Acyclovir cream in the UK is $6 for the generic brand and $8 for Zovirax, the name brand, compared to about $50 here for a prescription for Zovirax and $6-12 for our OTC products.

Our entire pharmaceutical industry works like this, marketing dozens of useless products to suckers like me who can't get the real deal and then charging a small fortune for prescription drugs. But here's what I find most interesting. GlaxoSmithKline makes Abreva, the over-the-counter remedy that I had been using, and they're the SAME COMPANY as GlaxoWellcome that makes Zovirax!


So these jerks are charging us ten times more than the Europeans are paying for the same drug, but keep access to it so restricted that they can make even more money marketing products to us that we don't even want! It's a total racket. How much longer are we going to put up with this?

If you have examples, please post. Thanks!

All eyes on China

I got a request to blog more frequently. It very sweet and it made me smile but in order to do it, I’ll have to post more of my silly thoughts while I chew on those that surround my days and weeks and sometimes months, like what I’m thinking right now about China.

This month’s issue of National Geographic is all about China, every page. It's excellent. I love the timing of this magazine and I think they’re right on; in the very near future, the whole world is going to be looking at China. Not just the Chinese government that suppresses rights and imprisons those that speak out against it and not just the China that’s buying the world’s debt, investing in resources in Africa and South America and not just the China that’s hosting the Olympics.

I have yet to find someone who agrees with me but I’ll even go one further. Not only will the world be all about China and the Chinese people, soon, it will no longer be all about the United States. It’s already happening in conversations with friends, relatives and my parents. I can’t get into any conversation without someone bringing up what China is doing. All of a sudden, they’re in everyone’s country and everyone’s business.

There's a great article on WorldChanging about a collaboration between photographer Paolo Woods and journalist Serge Michel at FotoGrafia, the 7th edition of international festival of photography which runs until May 25th in Rome. Their presentation follows China's industrial neo-colonialism in Africa. The photos of Chinese running factories and building local economies and Chinese being taught by Africans in their classrooms are amazing. You can see all the photos from China's Wild West under stories, on Paolo Wood's website:


China is home to one of the oldest continuous civilizations on earth. They are by far the most populous country, making up 20% of the world’s population. There are more people on the Internet in China than in any other country, including the U.S. They are expected to overtake us as the world’s largest economy in less than 10 years. Over 30% of the population call themselves religious and that number is growing. 45% of women say they don't want to give up their careers to have children.

They are the world leaders in manufacturing, and in a few short decades, they have grown a rich class and an enormous middle class with healthy appetites for domestic and foreign goods and resources. They have quickly embraced the West’s competition for success and all the stress and malaise that goes with it. They still cannot freely surf the Internet or speak their mind but those days are numbered. As they continue to embrace technology, art and imported culture, they’ll find themselves in a much more visible role in the world struggle for human rights.

Most Chinese in school are now studying English and their English speakers outnumber those in the United States. There’s a mass migration going on of people from the country to the city and with increased wealth and population density comes a frenzy of information sharing and a demand for more freedom. I predict that in the next few years China will have a cultural explosion, exporting and importing people and culture with the same voracity that they have adopted everything else.

China is dealing with the issues we’re all dealing with, except in all cases their situation is already more dire. They need to provide healthcare for the biggest baby boomer population in the world, a generation that has less children to provide for them due to the one-child policy. They have the highest statistic for air pollution related deaths, have built more mega dams than anywhere in the world, and have deforested and leveled mountains to the point of serious environmental erosion. They’re only now beginning to embrace archeological digs and animal conservation. They’re dealing with a rapidly growing disparity between rich and poor, massive urbanization, and a serious shortage of natural resources.

Natural disasters are a constant but this time the Chinese are starting to ask questions like why so many schools collapsed in the recent earthquake. We’re already seeing a comparison between how China handled their rescue efforts compared to the disasters in the rest of the world. The incredible level of humanitarian aid offered by regular citizens has put the government in an uncomfortable position. No longer a closed society, there are at least three Flickr groups with photos from the earthquake: china 512 earthquake, Sichuan Earthquake 2008 and Just The News (were you there? - if not, don't add!)

They’ve turned the spotlight on themselves by bidding to host the Olympics and I’m afraid it isn’t going off for a while. I predict that the era of all eyes on America is coming to an end. The question is, will American eyes remain closed to the outside world or will we begin to learn by observing others?

Wired sells out to Monsanto

I picked up my new Wired magazine and immediately read their cover story, an inflammatory ‘environmentalists are full of shit’ piece. It really pissed me off. They end their series of anti-arguments based on facts focused around cutting carbon dioxide, with a “take it with a grain of salt" letter from the editor of Worldchanging.com. He basically says the article is a short-lens focus that could get us into even more trouble. Isn’t the damage already done with a cover like “Keep your SUV, forget organics and screw the spotted owl?” I suppose it would be okay if they were using it to get people reading but then dole out some actual wisdom inside, but they don’t.

Here are my reactions to the articles:

1) A/C is OK. Here they say it takes more energy to heat a house in a cold climate than it does to cool a house in a hot climate. Good point, but really do we want everyone to move to the Southwest? The area is already burgeoning and just beginning a mega-drought that could last up to 150 years, where are they going to get enough water to live? What about clamping down on cheap housing construction and passing ordinances requiring better insulation. We’ll all have to pay more per square foot but maybe it will have the doubly beneficial effect of making our houses use space more efficiently.

2) Live in cities. Yes, for the most part, urbanization is cool and better for the environment but they make an argument that exurbs are the same as living in a truly rural area surrounded by trees. People don’t live in exurbs to be closer to nature, they sprouted up because people (like in Los Angeles) couldn’t afford to buy houses in the city so developers bought cheap land 50 miles out of town in the desert and built affordable housing there. The article points a finger at lawnmowers (a product of the suburb/exurb) and I totally agree that lawnmowers are a waste of energy. But why not encourage people with land to plant trees and grow a garden to feed themselves instead of trying to get them to move to a city? Not everyone wants to live in an apartment.

3) Organics are not the answer. This one really burns me up. They say we should screw organic because it takes 25 organic cows compared to 23 industrial cows for the same milk and they put out 16 percent more greenhouse emissions. Are they f’ing kidding me? We should drink hormone-laced pus-filled milk from sick suffering cows for that differential? The only smart thing they say in this article, albeit stuffed in the middle, is that if you really want to do something for the environment, stop eating meat altogether. It’s true that we can’t go organic at our current rate of consumption but we (in industrialized countries) eat and waste too much food anyway. Instead, I think we should go organic 100% and patronize restaurants that serve reasonable proportions of quality food.

4) Farm the forests. The only good thing in this section is about culling dead wood out of the forests, it does prevent fires and with the climate heating up, we can’t afford the kind of fires it’s going to bring. But the rest of it, about becoming full time forest farmers and cutting down old growth trees is total bullshit.

5) China is the solution, not the problem. I agree! (See next post) China has become the number one producer of alternative energy solutions for export and use in their own country. Due to decades of rapid and untethered production and growth, their feet are now much closer to the proverbial fire than ours; they will likely find and implement environmental solutions quicker than us.

6) Accept genetic engineering. If I read one more thing about biofuel, I’m going to be sick. They just made the point that we should use more public transportation in the “move to the city” argument but now they’re talking about how we should embrace genetic engineering so we can grow more biofuel. They attack fertilizer and say nothing of chemical sprays, but fertilizer is necessary because of our addiction to monocrops (and profits). Thousands of years ago, farmers rotated crops and used trees and companion plants that naturally kept bugs away or attracted complimentary insect relationships (like worms) and enrich the soil to the benefit of certain crops. The author mentions Monsanto as some kind of wonder company here to save our lives. Monsanto is a chemical company that produces the world’s best-selling “herbicide,” a chemical that kills everything. They then got into the agriculture business producing 90% of the GMO crops on the planet, specifically engineered to resist their herbicide. Roundup kills everything except the crops they engineer. They are corporate bullies who use lawsuits and threats to wipe out local farmers. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." Unchecked, everything we eat will be engineered by Monsanto. If Wired really gave a shit about us and the environment, they’d do a full report on how they control our food supply.

7) Carbon Trading doesn’t work. I agree, good idea that needs improved.

8) Embrace nuclear power. There’s been a lot of talk that the only way we’ll produce enough energy for the billions of us on the planet in the future is from nuclear. They call it the cleanest of the fossil fuels because of the low emissions, uh, but what about the huge volume of nuclear waste produced? We already have tons of it buried in leaking containers under the ground in Washington and other states, we have no safe way to dispose of it and it remains toxic for thousands of years. Let’s focus on energy saving and efficiency before we make feeding our voracious appetites the top priority, eh?

9) Used cars not hybrids. Okay, I get the argument. New cars cost a lot of energy to make. If you’re driving a ten-year old fuel-efficient Toyota like my RAV, it’s better for the environment to keep driving it than to buy a new car. Except that my RAV will never end up in the landfill, there will always be someone waiting to buy it. They suggest (again, to be inflammatory) by the same logic you’re better off driving a Hummer because making a Hummer contributes less carbon to the environment (because of the nickel in Prius’ battery). They say nothing about the fact that cars in Europe are twice as fuel-efficient as ours and are the same as a Prius, which is why you don’t see hybrids there. It’s all a bunch of crap. We’re sold gas-guzzlers on purpose so the hybrids look good in comparison. While it doesn’t affect our carbon output, the quiet drive of the hybrids has many other benefits.

10) Prepare for the worst. Yes, things are going to get much hotter and much worse before they get better and we do need to accept that and prepare. They quote Stewart Brand who says, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it" and suggest that we take over completely by using our technology to fix the things we've broken like helping birds migrate, for example. We're destroying their natural habitat, building over open spaces that break up long migration journeys, disrupting communication with our noise and killing them and their food with pesticides but the scientists are going to save the birds with assisted migration? Then again, they mention that Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, PCBs and Bovine Growth Hormone, will save us with genetic engineering. What is this issue sponsored by Bush and the chemical industry?

I agree we better figure out ways to adapt and continue to innovate but we are consuming and disrupting the natural order of the planet at an unsustainable rate and technology alone will not save us (or the birds). We need to continue to make our small but impactful changes like eating locally produced food, driving less, taking a tote the store instead of using plastic bags, planting trees and food in our yards if we have them, installing energy efficient appliances, using less energy by unplugging what we aren’t using, and continuing to pay attention, support innovation and demand responsibility from corporations and governments.

Here's the first part of a two hour-long show about Monsanto:

The World According to Monsanto 1 of 4 27min

Random interactions

Every now and then, I have a string of what seem to be odd or funny fleeting interactions with strangers. I always wonder if these people are a kind of messenger delivering something to me that I wouldn't hear coming from a friend. Then again, I try not to read too much into them.

I was taking a cab to the wedding in Georgia. It was only a dozen blocks or so but I had some slight heels on and I’m such a wimp, I’d probably have blisters if I walked it. Anyway, the cab driver was chatting at me the whole time but a lot of it was unintelligible for some reason. I think I told him I was going to a wedding, he asked where I was from, I said San Francisco and then he said he’d spent some time there in the sixties. Oh, I said, that was a good time to be there. He looked at me, really confused, huh? Never mind. He chatted at me some more. Then when I got out (and he dropped me off in the wrong place as it turns out) he said “And just remember, it’s never too late!”

I was introduced to someone at a party on Friday and he said as he was leaving, “Your name is an adjective!”

The other day I had to mail some bills. I had been sitting at the computer for far too long and finally launched myself out the door when I had only 20 minutes to get there. I could make it if I walked quickly but when I hit the hills, I suddenly got a burst of energy and decided to run. There was one big hill, a street, and then another. Halfway up the first one, a guy on a bike came by. He said something and I paused the iPod (which I never take walking but did because I knew I needed motivation to get there quickly). I said, very impressive! He rode his bike exactly alongside me to the next street. Let’s see how you do on this one, he said. Challenged, I of course had to keep running. My chest pounded a bit on the top but I made it up at the same pace as him. As he pedaled off he said, “You have my admiration!”

While I was England, I went into a shop to get some photos printed. The saleslady asked me if I was Canadian. When I said no, American, she said “Really? Because your accent is so soft.”

In Georgia, I was at the apartment of my friend getting married. All the bridesmaids were arriving for hair and makeup and to generally get ready together. There were a lot of people milling around as my friend got her hair put into giant curlers. I introduced myself to a woman I didn’t know. You have good eyebrows, she said. I realized she must have been the makeup gal and said that I wasn’t getting made up. Embarrassed, she said “Oh, well it’s good you have nice eyebrows then, imagine if you didn’t!”

You write like a man

My friend Paul posted this cool test (uh, several years ago) that I always meant to take but I suppose didn’t have the writing to. Basically it counts the number of times certain male/female indicator words are used in a piece of writing and determines the gender of the author. I decided to run the test on ten recent posts that have enough words. Here are the results:

“Fun sucking technology”, what to me seems like a totally female rant, comes out male.
Female Score: 1035
Male Score: 1114

So does “More protests” please!
Female Score: 1208
Male Score: 1245

“Uncivilized” squeaks out as female because guess what? “Not” is a female word!
Female Score: 1654
Male Score: 1653

But one about being scared? Male!
Female Score: 1027
Male Score: 1180

“Landing on my feet” is female too, and “was” is a female word. What are they trying to say?! That women are negative and talk about the past?
Female Score: 701
Male Score: 690

“A post I started in December” turns out female thanks to the word “and.” I guess we’re inclusive also.
Female Score: 937
Male Score: 906

"How to be on camera", my “how to” post, is overwhelmingly male thanks to heavy use of the word “are.”
Female Score: 1367
Male Score: 1480

Even though I use the word “with” (another inclusive female word) more times than any other in “Addendums to earlier posts,” it comes out male due to a consistent use of the male words “more,” “the,” “is,” and “a.”
Female Score: 1341
Male Score: 1588

Finally, “Dying to get here,” comes out male. My use of the male word “what” gives “with” a serious run for her money but still doesn’t catch up.
Female Score: 2553
Male Score: 3378


6 of 10 tests think I’m a man. Maybe I’m just “balanced.” BTW, I'm on vacation until May 5 and will hopefully have a slew of new posts. See you then!

I really should be a scientist

I keep coming to that conclusion. I know that in reality, scientists also have a hard time proving their worth, getting anyone to believe their ideas, and probably, also, have to answer questions like "what kind of team player are you?" Is this multiple choice? How many kinds are there? I don't know what it is but every question in an interview sounds like a veiled insult. "So you aren't working...what are you doing?" I'm looking for a fucking job! What do you think I'm doing? Well actually, I'm going on vacation to England (which they already know), I'm working on a documentary short for a non-profit (which is on my resume) and I'm blogging for WhatGives.com (which is what I actually said). The disinterested 25-year old with black hair hanging in his eyes made a note. I found out later that he's the quasi-blogger for the company. Sigh, why is this so nerve wracking?

If you read my previous post, you know I'm afflicted with massive regret syndrome which makes me agonize for hours, sometimes days after such an encounter, over every hideous answer, comment "that may be construed as negative" (which, I believe is literally everything) and the worse, over sharing. It is not always a good thing to be loquacious and at ease in front of an audience. I also should be clever enough to know that I could have prepared for this. Halfway through the interview, I was wishing I was a scientist and I could talk about data and research and things I'm building or testing or theorizing. I wish they'd give me a test or a "what would you do in this scenario?" Instead, they want to know about ME. What kind of person? What kind of worker? What kind of team member? What kind of interviewee? Did I tell you I was being group interviewed? Fun!

I wish I could say I felt good before, during or after my third interview for this job with the cool company, but I didn't. I looked really weird. My hair was flat, my face puffy, my skin red. What the heck? I never like what I'm wearing and always pretty sure it's all wrong. The last two days, I've been nervous and shredded my poor thumbnails so I was conscious of trying to hide those. And then the most senior woman in the room asked me when I graduated college, a date I intentionally left off my resume so as not to reveal my age. When I replied 1995 (and the others had also been asking about dates), I said "now you're all figuring out how old I am." Oh no, she said, we're not allowed to ask that.

I never knew how impossible it is to speak about myself without sounding like a total jackass. Really. Impossible! I feel like a used car salesman. My problem is, to combat the awkwardness, I'll show the customer the rust on the bottom, just so they know I'm on the level. Interviewing feels so messy to me, so out of control. It's like that scene in Parenthood where Steve Martin does the routine about slipping on Cowboy Dan's guts. That's me, except I'm slipping on my own guts. Oh well, it's over now and there's nothing I can do about it now except prepare for the next one and hope there is a next one.

Until the violence stops

I just watched one of my Netflix recommendations, V-Day: Until The Violence Stops, a documentary about the movement born out of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues; a worldwide movement of women reclaiming their bodies, their dignity and their power. I can’t believe, as an actress and a feminist, that I’ve never seen it. From former comfort women in the Philippines – teenage girls who were forced to “service” six to eight Japanese soldiers a day for more than two years during WWII – to Africa where a single woman started a revolution against female circumcision, the movie reminded me of just how powerful words can be.

I recently debated with a young documentary filmmaker about the power of images versus words. While I think one of the most powerful films ever made, Baraka, is a purely visual film, words are what change the world: the law, the constitution, marriage vows, prayer and the words “I love you,” which never lose their power. It takes a native man in North Dakota, during one of the local productions of The Vagina Monologues, a full three minutes to stop his face quivering enough to thank the audience for coming and honoring the native women killed by their husbands in domestic violence. It is so painful to watch the suffering endured by men and women, abuser and abused, in this cycle of violence. This particular man abused his wife for the first three years of marriage until (and this is implied) he killed his two-year old son who was trying to protect his mother from his father.

The last two men that I’ve dated told me that their last serious girlfriends had been sexually abused or raped, and at some point the dysfunction became an issue in their relationship. I’ve heard this story so many times, in fact, that I wonder why men don’t realize that most women they know have been abused, raped or at least sexually harassed at work or school. After the primaries, I told a good friend of mine that I felt guilty supporting Barack instead of Hilary. I can’t help but think that only a female in charge will bring attention to the violence against women the world over. There is, of course, no guarantee that Hilary would do any more in that regard than a man, but the fact that one half of the population is still so routinely victimized by the other half, across cultures, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, and I’m sorry to say, in ways that are insidiously considered “normal,” is unacceptable.

Ironically, I was watching this film on the 10-year anniversary of V-Day and there were a slew of performances and celebrations last month, some are still going on. The monologues are the best way to see what it’s all about but if you can’t see a performance, or organize one yourself, you could always get the DVD. I would like to think that men can watch this and be just as moved, and not think "it's a women's issue." This is a worldwide problem that affects all of us, and we all can do something to stop it.

Fun sucking, time wasting, age discriminating technology

I am seriously about to shoot my computer. Is it just me or is anyone else having trouble with Gmail? I swear I have to quit it constantly, try it in another browser, it just doesn’t load or when I click an email it “refreshes” but nothing happens. My browser gives up. I force quit. After I while I get a message that the program has stopped responding, do I want to force quit? YES! Damn it, I just told it to do that. Grrr. I restart. I try it again, after five minutes of trying, I am finally able to login again. There are seven new emails since I last had access an hour ago.

I’ve been at the computer for three hours already. First I discovered that my move of my iTunes music from my computer to an external hard drive didn’t quite work. It was loading an old library. I replace it with the new library. Now the old songs aren't in it. I recopy the songs, now I have 4,000 duplicates. OMG. It can’t find the original songs now, just the new ones. WTF? I have to delete the duplicates but oops, my favorites are not marked on the new imports. I have to manually mark them first.

I get that done but now I have to rebuild my set lists. That was relatively painless and I finally update the iPod for my impending trip to the UK. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to recharge the thing after my 11 hour flight…can I plug it into someone else computer and charge? After that, I upload the photos from yesterday’s brunch. I tweak color. I export. I upload to Flickr. I rename, I tag, and I organize. This is about the time my browsers want to poop out. I have about 12 tabs open of links I want to include in blog posts. I copy the links into a Word document. Oh lord, I think Word is about to give up too. I’m just going to restart.

It’s a good thing I’m unemployed. Otherwise, how would I possibly have time for all this technology? Then it occurs to me that half of my workday must have been spent wrangling with technology. Skpying with friends and coworkers, usually about nothing, reading and responding to emails, setting up my Pandora stations, and trouble shooting performance problems. But I was getting paid!

Since Saturday, I’ve written three blog posts in my notebook but they haven’t shown up on my blog yet because of the pain of sitting down and wrangling with technology to get them done. I can’t think with all this wrestling going on. Last week I spent several joyous hours shuffling video files and music from various hard drives to make room for a new video project. Technology has the maddening dual effect of making things much more accessible while also sucking the fun out of them: for me, filmmaking, writing and marketing.

There’s nary a profession these days that isn’t affected by the technology fun sucking phenomenon. My dad became an engineer because he wanted to build things but found himself instead, 20 years later, a programmer who hadn’t built anything. That’s when he quit and starting building houses. He draws the designs on the computer but it’s still a world barely touched by technology. Hairdressers are one of the rare few professions that haven’t changed. People will always have hair and it will always need cut. It’s pretty basic.

But even worse than fun sucking is the experience invalidation. A woman told me in an interview that she’d rather hire a person with two years experience with widgets than a person with ten years marketing experience (me). Seriously? I think it’s probably always been like this but I’ve always been on the receiving end of that short sighted discrimination; the belief that young people are naturally more able to understand what’s going on in the world. I can’t think of anything more preposterous. I suppose the same people who ten years ago thought the person with the most experience was the most knowledgeable are the same ones that think a 24-year old with two years experience is the most hip.

Here's the truth, there are people who are naturally curious, clever and are always changing. It doesn’t matter how old they are or how much experience they have, they are the ones who will do the job well.

More protests please!

Last week, I was chatting with a friend about going to watch the Olympic Torch relay here in San Francisco. Following the protests in London and Paris, there were rumors of a similar reception here. I didn’t go, ultimately, because of the confusion over the route and because wasn’t sure what to make of the protests. While Skyping with a friend in Europe about it, he said “throw a stone for me.” Throw a stone? At whom? One of the runners? I can support boycotts. I know I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again, I remember when we boycotted “Made in China” products and I don’t really recall what kind of human rights improvements China made to get off that list but I didn’t hear anyone complaining at the register of Target or heard anyone pressuring their favorite designers even though they’ve all set up shop in China or another country with much worse treatment of workers – and charging the same ridiculous prices.

I can support peaceful protest. After all, that’s what the Dalai Lama always preaches. We all know the torch relay is a huge media event and I fully support Free Tibet and Amnesty International using the coverage as a way to get their message seen and heard. But what I can’t understand is why the thing needs to be stopped: flame snuffed, athletes mobbed, bus blocked. Again, it’s not that I don’t support the causes; it’s just that the reason isn’t clear and as always I think from a marketing perspective, it doesn’t win you friends. Less informed Americans will just be baffled and defensive, even if they pay more attention it’s now going through a filter of confusion. “Why do Tibetans hate the Olympics?” someone is bound to think. But actually, I worry more about the Chinese. We have to separate the Chinese government from the Chinese people just as we would expect others to do of us here in the U.S. The Chinese are very excited and proud to host the Olympics.

In San Francisco, a false relay route was published so no one could disrupt, or even witness the relay. What the heck? Isn’t the whole POINT is to support international solidarity and unity? Perusing photos on Flickr, it seems that only various protesters showed and the only thing they saw was each other. BBC news published several “man on the street” interviews with people in China to get their reaction. Their reactions are actually very balanced – “yes, we have problems but many people are misinformed about China and should take this opportunity for increased dialogue not shutting us out.” Hear, hear! They very aptly ask, what about the U.S. human rights violations? I have to raise my eyebrows at that and think, yeah, what about Guatanamo, Iraq, 1 in 35 adult black men in prison, the death penalty, depriving people of medical care, homicide, Native Americans, homelessness? We may not be beating monks or imprisoning writers but we’re certainly not perfect.

Yes, we should express ourselves. Yes, we should take a stand. Yes, we should protest and boycott whatever we don’t agree with. And yes, we should pay more attention to China but we should not feel that we are superior and we should consider the best way to being a dialogue with the people of China. Each and every one of us purchases items from China on a regular basis, so we always have the option to make a statement through boycott. It’s just not as sexy as laying down in front of a bus on national television.

In a couple of weeks, a defense contractor hired by the federal government, using funds from Homeland Security (read the Huff Post article!), is going to begin spraying the Bay Area to eradicate a harmless moth. This campaign is scheduled to continue for years despite protests from our representatives, expert etymologists, farmers and citizens, and despite the fact that the chemical being sprayed is not necessary and unsafe. Do you think any of the protesters from the torch relay will show up at City Hall on April 28 for the peaceful protest? No, I don’t think we should protest less, I think we should protest more.

Uncivilized States of America

Between the ages of 12 and 19, I went to Europe three times with my family. We mainly went to visit my relatives in England but also managed to see Paris, stay in rural France, drive through southern Germany, tour Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria and tour through Wales staying in farmhouse B&B’s. My English cousins, only a few years younger than me, thought America was so cool and always talked about someday wanting to live here. It was the eighties; no one in Europe thinks that way about America anymore. Even at that young age, I advised them that America was not all they thought it was. It was in those years that I formulated the opinion that the U.S. treated its citizens as stupid ill-behaved children that can’t be trusted with responsibility. A sentiment echoed decades later in President Bush’s statement that it didn’t matter if we didn’t support the war in Iraq because he knew what was best for the country.

Why is it, I asked, that at 16 I can pay taxes but I can’t vote? That I can drive but can’t go to a club to see a concert with my friends? That I can go to college but can’t borrow money to pay for it? In Europe, college is free and parents are allowed to determine when and how their kids can drink alcohol. At monuments in Britain, there were no ropes or signs restricting where you can go or telling you how to behave. Their government trusts its citizens to be adults and behave accordingly. If you fall and get hurt, it’s your fault and responsibility. You wouldn’t sue for your mistake. But then, you wouldn’t have to because your medical treatment is free regardless of how it happened or who is to blame.

For twenty years, I have wanted to live in Europe. As a teenager, I made “mood boards” of European villages, small farms and old towns that I wanted to visit. I haven’t managed to spend much more than four weeks in Italy as an adult, four of the best weeks of my life. Lately though, I‘ve been feeling so down on America, so tired of the lies and hypocrisy that seem to be everywhere. Why do we spend more than ten times more on military “defense” than any other country in the world? Are we really ten times safer? Or in ten times as much danger? Our president says it to keep our country safe and yet we are being polluted by industry, poisoned by our food and killed by a lack of health care and campaign of misinformation about what is “food.” Why are we told and why do people believe that this is the greatest nation on earth? Because we have democracy? We have the lowest voter turnout of any democracy on the planet, so that can’t be the reason.

I just watched Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko. All these years I’ve been arguing with people who didn’t believe me when I said that Europeans were better off than us. My cousins all own their own homes, have new cars, little to no debt and have traveled all over the world on their holidays. They aren’t better educated than me and I probably make the same amount of money, minus the five weeks paid mandatory vacation. They’re politically informed and engaged and never have had a problem finding work. And they’re healthy.

Sicko, while focused on the sham that is our “health care industry,” also asks the bigger question of “what’s wrong with us”? Why are we the only civilized nation in the world that denies basic rights and services – health care, time off and education – to its citizens? It’s no wonder Europeans don’t respect us, we put up with the most disgusting abuse and corruption but then wave our flags and tell everyone to be like us. It’s unfortunate that more Americans haven’t spent time overseas to see how other people live. Moore makes a good point about how we’ve been brainwashed to believe that national health care would be socialist and socialism is a bad, scary thing. Well it is to rich people but for the rest of us, it’s the purpose of government and society. As Jared Diamond describes in Guns, Germs and Steel, in a kleptocracy it’s what we get in exchange for those in charge taking the largest portion of goods. This article references the best quote in the film from a Labor Party member of Parliament, a portion of which is that “an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.” Keep us frightened and demoralized and we won’t protest our condition. Bingo!

Look at these happy people, they just had a baby for free:


Moore takes a crew of sick Americans, including 9/11 rescue workers denied treatment, to Guatanamo Bay where the terrorists being held and receiving better medical attention than most Americans. They end up in a hospital, in Cuba of all places, where they get first class treatment in a segment that rendered me in tears much like one of those makeover reality shows. This country is being run into the ground by greedy and corrupt politicians and corporations, who are getting rich of us, and it’s happening right before our eyes. Someday, when people start trying to leave this country and live elsewhere, we’ll be asked why we didn’t do anything to stop it.

A while back someone sent me a video explaining the writer's strike in Hollywood on YouTube. It was a very simple and factual explanation, nothing emotional, just this is what we have, this is what we're asking for and this is why. Underneath the video, there were hundreds of comments. Almost all of them were hateful vitriolic statements about the writers being lazy and untalented. People said I hope you starve. They said, why should you get compensated when the rest of us are screwed by business? They accused writers of being greedy. I couldn't believe it. A friend of mine said she thought they were planted there by studios but I don't think so. I've seen too many examples of Americans slinging hate at each other to know that we're an angry bunch of people who hate to see other people get something they deserve, unless it's punishment. But the anger is misdirected. We should be angry, we should be very angry but not at each other. Moore says at the end of the movie that nothing will change until we starting thinking of "we" instead of "me."

Scared stupid

Even though I started working part time a month ago, I have done very little in the way of finding a job. Looking for a job is probably the most depressing thing I ever have to do. I will literally do anything to avoid it. The biggest problem is the jobs themselves, they all sound dreadful and not like something I would ever want to do for any amount of money. Then comes the dreadful realization that I have to do one of these god awful jobs if I expect to continue making delicious vegetables from the Farmer’s Market and sitting on my down-filled couch to watch my Netflix movies, and traveling to see my friends and family and buying new music and sleeping in my comfortable bed. Basically everything hinges on money coming into my bank account, which isn’t happening at the moment.

Working is easy. Getting up, putting on clothes and going to a job is a piece of cake. And honestly, I’ve never had a job that I thought was difficult. Stressful at times, perhaps, because people are involved. Politics, egos and emotions are hard to deal with, not work. But looking for a job is a whole different story. I don’t like talking about myself, I don’t like selling myself, and honestly I think my resume is a sad reduction of my potential as a worker and human being. Certainly I’m capable of much more than that piece of paper can explain. Usually the jobs are so reductive that it isn’t an issue, until now.

Tomorrow I go to interview for a company that, and I’ve never used these words to describe a company before, is unbelievably cool and awesome. They innovate, they solve problems, they come up with ideas and they produce them. They’re interested in what I’m interested in: how to make things better, why people do what they do, what people want, how to fix things that should be easy to fix, making life better. My first interview was over the phone and I all I did to prepare was look at their website. I took it at work on a conference phone and just winged it. I must have done well because they want me in person, but I literally had no idea the company I was interviewing with. I even referenced their fact sheet that I printed from their website, as if I had done my homework!

Now I’m completely freaked out. I feel like I just got lucky on the first interview. Everything I said on the call was in line with their company philosophies because I naturally am aligned with this company. I didn’t have any prepared answers and yet my responses were so right on, it must have seemed like I prepared them. Halfway through the call the ladies started asking what I liked to do for fun. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that in an interview and I had no idea what to say. I stuttered and muttered and said something about being a geek and going to panels on environmental sustainability. Clearly, that does not accurately describe my fun time. But it made me realize they were looking at me as a person, not just a worker.

I have sat at my computer for the last two days trying to think of a way to put a cool presentation together, something that summarizes my experience or maybe some ideas for their company. Everyone must want to work here, and they must have a dozen or more super qualified and excited candidates. How can I make myself stand out? I’m literally frozen with fear and haven’t done anything. All the work I’ve done at other jobs seems so lame, most of it is lame, so how do I crow about it? After more than ten years in this business, I still feel like I’m waiting for my chance to shine. Self-help books always say if you're afraid, you're probably going in the right direction. Well I'm terrified, so maybe this is it.

Here's an example of what they design:


This company employs experts and thought leaders, TED types. I feel like a wanna be, a groupie in the presence of the greatest band ever. Why aren't I someone? Why aren't I an expert? I've been out of college for over a decade and feel like all I've done is grow my interests and potential. So much potential. So many interests! But where are my accomplishments? Why is it that I feel so unfinished, like I haven't even started taking shape yet?