This just in via email from Craig, a reader of this blog out in Wisconsin:
Happy “Talk Like a Pirate” Day!
I wish people would tell me these things before I go to work in the morning. A whole day of normal talk wasted… wasted I tell you.
ARrrrrgggh.
Thank ye fer tellin’ us, matey. So, dear readers, don’t be wastin’ the rest of yar day — start talkin’ like the pirate you truly arrrrr, shiver me timbers.
It’s pouring rain right now. Ten minutes ago it was drizzling. Ten minutes from now it might stop. The air is warm and thick and humid. One of those warm intermittent rain storms you get in New England in September, after the worst heat of the summer is done and before the cool air comes in for good. Not even a tropical storm or a hurricane, like the one pounding Cape Hatteras right now and headed our way tomorrow. Just a drenching rain storm, warm and humid.
We have a drum in our apartment with a goat-skin head on it. Over the weekend, the head was taut and smooth. Today, the head hangs loosely in the rim. You can see all the places where I didn’t stretch the head evenly when I was putting it on the rim.
With the rain, not many people at the farmer’s market today. The woman from Quansett Farm had winter squash this week, pretty deep-orange hybrid squash I’ve never seen before. She said she’s got Hubbards and Butternuts, too, but she didn’t bring them. It still seems too early to bring them out, it’s still too warm. We can ignore them, but the squash and these September rain storms are telling us: Autumn creeps closer every day.
A new photoblogger posts top-notch images, many of which can only be described as meditative. Almost no text allows you to focus on the quiet, meditative photographs — where else could you find an image of Che Guevara which calms rather than incites? Some of the images are more in the documentary line but still excellent. The only real downside is when you want to view an image in a larger size, you have to deal with the clunky AOL interface — but if you’re reading this blog, you’re already putting up with AOL’s clunky blogging software.
Update: Blog no longer on AOL.
Our apartment is right in downtown New Bedford, a ten minute walk from the harbor. Needless to say, there are lots of gulls in the neighborhood. A couple of mornings ago, a group of gulls set up shop on the roof of a building near us, and had what sounded like a knock-down, drag-out, sreaming fight over something. My guess is that they were fighting over some little scrap of half-decayed fish guts. Gulls seem to love to fight over that kind of thing.
I don’t mind the gulls fighting and screaming. It adds to the character of the neighborhood. But I do mind the fact that they were doing it at 5:30 in the morning, awakening me out of a sound and blissful sleep. I also mind that the kept up screaming at each other for what seemed like half an hour.
Stupid gulls.
First Unitarian hosted a candlelight vigil this evening, sponsored by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry (RCFM). The Traviglini/Lees amendment is being voted on tomorrow by the state legislature, and there were eight such candlelight vigils around the state to show that there are lots of religious people in Massachusetts who support equal marriage rights. Over a thousand people showed up at the Boston vigil.
We got a late start planning our vigil here in New Bedford. We had managed to get the word out to a few sympathetic local religious groups, and I was hoping for at least fifty people. But yesterday (Monday), there were reports in the media that the amendment was not going to pass — after those reports I fielded one phone call from someone who wanted to know whether or not they should even show up, and I’m sure there were people who just decided to not come.
At 5:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before the vigil was supposed to begin, I went out to unlock the front gates, and I saw city workers blocking off Union Street and County Street in front of the church property. Now, RCFM had pulled a permit for us to use the sidewalk, but we had not expected to have the streets blocked off — in fact the whole point for having the vigil on the sidewalk was to make sure people saw us. I didn’t pull the permit, so maybe there was confusion and we got a permit for a street demonstration or something — or maybe it’s just a standard public safety measure — or maybe someone thought we were too controversial and wanted to protect us. Who knows. But traffic sure got backed up, and if you got stuck in traffic because of our little candlelight vigil, you have my sincere apologies — it wasn’t supposed to be that way!
With traffic getting backed up, nearly everyone was late to the vigil, including the field coordinator for RCFM. But we got going at 6:15.
Rev. Ann Fox, minister of the Fairhaven Unitarian Universalist church, gave the opening words. Mark Montigny, our state senator, spoke about his support for equal marriage rights. He said he sees no reason to mess with our “beautiful state constitution,” which has upheld human rights for centuries. Tony Cabral, another one of our legislators, showed up unexpectedly, and he told us that the fight to preserve equal marriage rights has just begun, for even though it’s likely the Traviglini/Lees amendment will go down tomorrow, the next step will be a voter referendum that will be heavily financed by rich interest groups from outside Massachusetts. John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford, spoke next, telling us that equal marriage rights is one of the inalienable rights, a part of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Of the nine mayoral candidates here in New Bedford, only Matt Morrisey showed up to voice his support for equal marriage rights, saying that he felt all New Bedford citizens deserved the right to marriage. Amy Mello, field coordinator for RCFM, finally made it by about 6:30, and she filled us in about what RCFM is doing (and to find out more about RCFM, visit www.rcfm.org).
By the time everyone who wanted to got to talk, it was 6:40, and dark enough to light the candles and stand out on the corner of Union and County Streets. I should say, the blocked-off and eerily quiet corner of Union and County Streets. We had about 35 people by that time, far fewer than I had expected, but a nice group — Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Jews, Pagans, Unitarian Universalists, and maybe some others that I missed — ages from 13 to 70’s — women and men, gay and straight.
Right at seven o’clock, we put out our candles (we wanted to be good citizens, and end right on time so the city could open up the roads again). Rev. Karen McArthur, the pastor at Pilgrim Congregational Church, offered the closing words, pointing out that while some states still had laws prohibiting interracial marriages up into the 1960’s, Massachusetts ended those laws in the 1840’s. Massachusetts, said Karen, has often been at the forefront of equal rights issues.
It wasn’t the most organized candlelight vigil I’ve ever been to (you could say that it was an improvisational event rather than strictly choreographed). But I felt it was well worth my while. We may not have made much of a public statement, but the fact that people from so many different faith traditions got together to support equal marriage rights made it worth my while. And it was good to have politicians, an ex-politician, and an aspiring politician with us. Seems like there is hope for equal marriage rights in this state.
By the way, no one from the press showed up (and yes, RCFM did send out press releases). So this blog entry may be the only report you will read of this event.
I was out for a short stroll this evening, and I ran into a couple of people I know.
“We’re off to meet Fred Kalisz,” they said. It’s election season, and with nine mayoral candidates in New Bedford, this is the time of year when the candidates are all trying to meet the voters. “And after that, we have two or three more candidate meetings to go to,” they added.
That made me curious. Not many people would go to three meet-the-candidate events in one evening. It turned out that they are active in the “Friends of Buttonwood Park.” (For out-of-town readers, Buttonwood Park is a beautiful park just west of the downtown.) It’s an Olmsted-designed park, but it is not quite what it once was. Thus the “Friends of Buttonwood Park,” a non-profit citizen’s advocacy group, was formed to try to restore some of Buttonwood’s fading beauty.
The city has not been entirely responsive to this citizen’s group. Cities often seem designed for efficiency, not for higher purposes. Don’t plant more trees in the park because then you have to rake more leaves which costs more money. Yet Buttonwood Park was explicitly founded, not for the sake of convenience in raking leaves, but for the pleasure of workers who live in the city and need a place to go to restore their souls.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but I will have to tell these members of the “Friends of Buttonwood Park” about the concept of “ecojustice.” Ecojustice is shorthand both for economic justice and for ecological justice. For, you see, economic justice and ecological justice are so interwoven you really can’t separate them out. For example — we never hear about the problem of too many trees in the suburbs, and the wealthier the suburb, the more the trees, and the more leaves there are to rake. But you’d be crazy to complain about too many trees in a wealthy suburb. Yet for those who find it difficult to escape from the city, or who are bound to the city for most of the week because of their work schedule, trees somehow become an inefficient nuisance. Funny how that works.
You can think about the recent tragedy in New Orleans in terms of ecojustice, too. Notice how the poorest neighborhoods wind up in areas that are prone to ecological disasters like flooding (and toxic waste dumps, and major sources of air polution, and so on)? Funny how that works. Looks like economic and ecological justice really are linked.
Carol and I walked to Fairhaven along the sidewalk beside US 6, which leads over a short, low bridge, then Fish Island, then a swing bridge, then Pope’s Island, then another low-to-the-water bridge to Fairhaven. You pass three or four marinas, on the two islands, along the way. But the best part is the swing bridge section, which I have to explain to my readers who don’t live in the area. The bridge rotates about its center axis so that it lies ninety degrees to the main highway, thus allowing two channels for shipping to use to access the inner harbor. Since the bottom of the bridge is only abouteight feet above the water (depending on the tides), it has to be swung open to shipping regularly.
On the walk back to New Bedford, the bridge operator was climbing up to the control room at the center peak of the bridge just as we were walking across it. We stopped just over the bridge on Fish Island. The gates across US 6 came down, and traffic came to a stop. Most drivers shut off their engines. We watched as he unhitched the bridge roadway from the main roadway, spun it slowly around, watched the large pleasure boat cruise through, and then he swung the bridge slowly back.
My inner five-year-old was immensely pleased to watch this whole process, all ten minutes of it. Heck, my inner adult thought it was pretty cool and wanted to explore the machinery under the bridge and later sit up in the control room and learn how to run it. The small pleasures of living in a working port city.
Here in New Bedford, we have perhaps the most perfect weather possible — sunny, light breezes, cool, dry. So you’d think I’d be out enjoying this beautiful day, wouldn’t you? Nope. I’m dealing with computer problems. (If you’re a techno-geek, it’s preferences problems for Mac OS 10.3 which prevent the Finder from launching.)
I sat in front of my laptop all morning, and at one point I had this sudden memory of bending over the engine of my ’69 Plymouth Valiant, twiddling with the carbuerator. Suddenly it hit me. The evolution of computers today is about as far along as the evolution of automobiles was in the 1950’s — back when you were lucky if a car lasted five years, and you needed to have a tune-up twice a year or the car wouldn’t run, and when basically cars were pretty unreliable. Therefore, my ’69 Plymouth Valiant was further along the engineering evolutionary path (and therefore more reliable) than any computer made today.
Which is kinda depressing to think about.
Worse, when I had to bend over the engine of my old Valiant at least I could do it outside if the day was as beautiful as today is. At least I got to use my hands, and move around. But not with computers. Computer maintenance means sitting for hours indoors and doing nothing but typing.
I admit to some nostalgic fondness for my old Valiant, which finally died because there was such a big leak in the gas tank, my mechanic wouldn’t even let me drive it into his garage (think: “boom”). And I admit to some nostalgic fondness for my old Mac SE running OS 7, a nice stable operating system on nice stable hardware. My nostalgic fondness is completely overpowered by my desire to see a qunatum leap in engineering evolution of computers to the point where they are as reliable, and as long-lasting, as my ’93 Toyota Corolla.
Back to the Mac, as I try once more to get it working.
Just got a call from the Religious Coalition for Freedom to Marry, to discuss the candlelight vigil that will happen out in front of First Unitarian on Tuesday (Sept. 13, 6-7 p.m.). Looks like Mark Montigny, the state senator for this area, will be speaking, but that’s not quite definite yet. It’ll be nice if he’s there, but it doesn’t matter as much as getting people to come down, light a candle, and stand in public witness for marriage equality.
And I’ve been spending so much time thinking about Hurricane Katrina that I’ve let other issues slip from my mind. I should be thinking about Hurricane Katrina — but can’t lose sight of the ongoing issues — marriage equality, peace abroad and in our streets, economic justice, everything we keep working for and hoping for.
And in amongst all the organizing, you have to reserve some time for personal renewal — which I’ve been neglecting recently — time to go for a nice, long walk.