Saturday, May 29, 2004

The Book Pile

This is what’s waiting to be read (or re-read):

Raise High The Freedom Gates, Dorothy Height
Love, Toni Morrison
Riot and Remembrance, James S. Hirsch
“A Problem From Hell” America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Powers
The Fabric Of The Cosmos, Brian Greene
Literacy, Paolo Freire and Donaldo Macedo
We Make The Road By Walking, Miles Horton and Paolo Freire

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

What John Kerry Should Do

Of course no one asked me and certainly the perspective I bring, filtered through my life as an African-American woman, a community organizer, an out lesbian, by default a failed Catholic now nurturing Buddhist intentions … well, you know, who exactly would be interested in what I think John Kerry should do? It doesn’t matter, really, cause I feel the need to tell him anyway.

For those of you who are regular readers I will return to the issues raised by the torture scandal. I am pre-occupied by the role of women and what women thought they were doing; the idea that somehow these soldiers are innocent “boy and girls” in over their heads; and what does it mean that we live in a country that describes heinous covert operations as “black ops” insulated from the more legitimate “white” intelligence community. But first, Mr. Kerry:

I didn’t listen to George W. Bush last night. I can’t. It brings up feelings of rage and resentment and powerlessness. In addition I become pre-occupied with trying to catch him lying about what he said his administration was doing, what they are doing, what they are going to do. It’s just not good for me. But you, the presumptive nominee, (by the way, just accept the damn nomination) need to be a little clearer about your thinking regarding the war, getting to peace, and the US role in the world. Here’s what I think you should say and do –

First, admit you were wrong in voting to give George W. Bush any money or authority to wage war. You have been a senator a long time; perhaps you have never encountered a political creature like George Bush and his minions, willing to lie to us and you and your brethren and sistren who hold the purse strings. So admit that you trusted the President and you were wrong. Warn us against any illusion that we can trust him in the future. It will make some people mad but its closer to the truth.

Second, demand an apology from GWB for lying to us. Yes, the troops captured Saddam Hussein, an admirable goal, but that wasn’t this administration’s goal. If we go by what they say, we don’t really know what GWB’s intentions were. Judging their actions, it seems like it was to gain control of Iraqi oil. Yes, there was all that talk about weapons of mass destruction, then freeing the Iraqi people, creating a culture of democracy, on and on, but when the Army had to choose (or rather Donald Rumsfeld had to choose) between protecting the antiquities of a great and ancient civilization and the oil fields, well. Schools, hospitals, people’s homes, the water supply, the electrical grid were all less important than the oil fields. So call a Texas oil capitalist a Texas oil capitalist and ask for an apology.

The next part is harder. The problem is Saddam Hussein. See, he didn’t get to be who he was all on his own. The US was complicit, as was Russia, France and who know who all else. And within his own country, others benefited, I would say chose to benefit from his megalomania and terror. Yes, those who resisted were tortured, gassed, murdered. Others knew of these events and went along with them. Teachers taught his cult of personality. Army officers fired chemical weapons at Kurds and Shiites and marsh Arabs. I admit I have never lived under such extreme and morally fearsome conditions. I’m not saying I would have done any different. I hope I would do different but I don’t know. The one organization that resisted GWB’s march to war,the UN, was complicit through administration of its Oil for Food program. No one’s hands are clean. Suggestion # 3 is to turn over control to someone else. It seems like the only someone else might be the Iraqi people. We are in an impossible position as a country: complicit in creating the murdering tyrant, responsible for destruction of important parts of Iraq’s infrastructure with no real commitment to undoing what we helped create by keeping Saddam Hussein in power or to committing enough money and personnel to help the Iraqi people rebuild their country. You, John Kerry have to focus your planning and your comments on this last point – we must help the Iraqi people rebuild their country, on their terms, with their priorities, whether those are cultural, infrastructure, political or economic – not on whether GWB has been right or wrong. It will be imperfect, frustrating and chaotic, but at least this effort might be honest.

So that’s my 2 cents worth, rather my 789 words worth. Not that you asked for it.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Soil Science

The Garden At Home
We are trying to keep track of our gardening activities this year. We are keeping a garden notebook for the first time and describing what we do when and under what lunar sign. When I was young we gardened with my father, but I don’t remember him actually teaching me anything. The whole process felt somewhat oppressive since Dad would rent a quarter acre plot and fill it with green beans, collards, corn and other freezable vegetables. The tomatoes and salad greens were at home. Nothing is more daunting than a kid facing her father’s nostalgia for the farm in the form of (what seemed like) a hundred foot row of green beans to weed or pick.

I consider the women of the Contact Center, among other things, my true garden instructors. It is from them that I first learned about gardening by the moon. The first garden I had on my own was as part of the Center’s community garden project. I actually shared the plot with two of the younger Franciscan monks who had established a friary in the neighborhood. The fellas and I would be doing something and Miss Thelma (from one side) or Miss Sara (from the other side) would lean over the little fences between our gardens and say, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you”. We were smart enough to stop and inquire as to what we should do. Sometimes we would be planting root crops when we should be planting leafy vegetables. Or vice versa. My first lesson in lunar gardening was to plant root crops when the moon is waning and everything else when the moon is waxing.

Later I was given calendars and books on astrological gardening and there were additional details. Different signs associate with different crops and some signs, like Leo, are only good for weeding. This year we will document our own adventure in planting by the signs. As with all horticultural documentation it will take years of keeping records and comparing to know how well we are doing and what exactly we have learned.

Along with the soil science, weather, and horticulture much about gardening is intuition. And astrological gardening is as much about mindfulness as the effect of lunar gravity on vegetable seeds and perennials. For years, mostly my late 30s, I felt like I missed spring. Gardening by the moon is one of the ways I make sure I don’t.

So far this year Pat has grown magnificent tomatoes from seed and handsome calendula, zinnias, eggplant, nasturtiums, sorrel, eggplant, and broccoli rabe. Peppers and leeks have been less successful this year. We started arugula, peas, spinach, garlic, cilantro and potatoes from scratch. All are doing well. The radishes are not doing so good, mostly because the soil wasn’t worked enough.

We are trying to create healthy soil in our backyard so this weekend we added 13 bags of soil amendments to the recently improved raised bed. It was satisfactory for a third of the bed. Turning thin, rocky New England dirt into soil the consistency of devil’s food cake – thick, moist, rich, full of earthworms (oh … devil’s food cake isn’t full of worms) -- can take years, generally seven. We are only now beginning in earnest on all the vegetable beds, so we have six more years of hauling leaf mold, composted manure, fresh manure, topsoil, and our own compost to help the worms, centipedes, and to create the living system that our dirt should be.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Watching Spring Come to Akron

I had not been in Akron for an extended visit (more than 3 days) for almost 30 years. The last full Ohio springtime I experienced was exactly 20 years ago. The season change in New England can be tentative and frustrating. The light is different and the day not as long. I was excited to be in Akron, I didn’t know for how long but it turned out to be, roughly, from the Vernal (green slowly, inexorably overcomes gray) Equinox to after my Dad’s funeral in mid-May.

The first thing I always notice, especially when I drive across the New York Thruway, is the slow opening of the sky. Along with the 45 minute difference in length of day, the sky is just bigger as one approaches the old Western Reserve. Back here in Boston I go to the beach to watch the sunrise, I realize, just to get a sense of the horizon. In Ohio I rarely see the sun come over the horizon, but I don’t have to. There is just more blue or gray as it tends to be about 60% of the time.

I got to watch a lot of television for those few weeks. Come March or April local affiliate stations generally run hilarious (perhaps not intentionally) commercials for lawn care products and riding mowers. Things like, “John, my sneakers are green!” “Well Ben you need a 650 horsepower 4 stroke riding tractor mower the size of your pick up truck. That will do the trick”. There is truly a lawn fixation in my parent’s neighborhood. Indeed in the whole county. Most houses sit on quarter acre lots and people say disparaging things about their neighbors, like, “look at all those dandelions.” Lawns are a different color than here. The idea of Kentucky Blue grass just has a fuller expression than seems possible here.

As an act of open rebellion against our upbringing we spent four years removing most of the grass from our yard in Boston. When I got back I realized we could never attain the unstudied glory of a well-tended lawn in a working class neighborhood of Akron. The grass is pale. The dirt rocky and thin. The quality of day light incompatible with the vigorous flourishing of grass seed. And there just isn’t enough room. Here in Dorchester the lots are filled with buildings. In West Akron a house is incomplete without a full devil strip (the piece of lawn next to the street on the other side of the sidewalk) a substantial, by Boston standards, front lawn and a gloriously large back yard and vegetable garden. There are few flowers, annual or perennial, but there are bushes.

Brownie (the brown dog) and I would survey the lawns, and lawn care practices, every morning. There were frost tinged blue green expanses and rain soaked ones. Some mornings they were sun dappled. There were a few tulips and one yard in a four block area with an actual flower garden. The air was mostly warm and the view wide enough to give a girl a chance to breath.

Brownie and I were awakened at 3:30 a.m. by robins and mockingbirds, black capped chickadees and gold finches, house wrens and mourning doves anticipating sunrise. Of course sunrise was 3 hours away. They were exuberant, celebrating the nesting season. By the time we left the sidewalks were littered sky blue with the broken shells of recently hatched robins. My father used to have a nesting pair of wrens. I never thought of them as his until we were talking about the recent porch renovation. The nest had been removed to paint column it had rested on. I asked Dad if he thought they would come back. He said he thought they would. It turns out he had been there chick care assistant, feeding the babies little bits of bread while the parents went hunting for more substantial fare. The mom and pop birds must have known and approved. They returned to the nest year after year. They did not come back this year. They must have known their assistant might not be up to the task.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Soil Science

Major construction is under way at our house. The new deck is finished, let the landscaping begin! The moon bed is full of weeds, the raised bed has a new rack of wood retaining walls but no new soil amendments, the herb bed is still a good idea covered by the old brick patio. I stand at my kitchen window and consider what do I want to see? How do I want to watch the seasons pass, especially with my primary orientation being vegetable gardening. But there are shade beds and two new cherry trees to plant in the extremely fertile spot where the compost pile and comfrey now live.

How does one think of landscape and view in a space that is framed by our neighbors’ fences, our own driveway and the backs of other people’s garages? What do we do with such a small space when our aspirations are Ohio sized quarter acre lots? Watch this space.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Is This America?

“Is This America?” Fannie Lou Hamer

It’s been 40 years since Fannie Lou Hamer asked this question to the delegates of the Democratic National Convention. She was referring to the lack of representation of Black voters on the Mississippi delegation to the convention and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans in general. But she could have just as easily been asking about her own beating in a Mississippi jail, an act of torture that left her with chronic health problems. If Ms. Hamer were alive today, she might have been asking about the torture of Iraqi’s held by US troops all over that country.

And the answer would have to be yes, this is an aspect, an important and historically persistent aspect of US history and life throughout the Americas. Torture and genocide were perpetrated at the founding of this country, its practices formed the basis for this country’s early economic prosperity and torture was the underpinning of Jim Crow and other forms of oppression of people of color throughout the US. Certainly, a general disrespect for human dignity is an important tool in all forms of military training.

The “founders” of this country destroyed the peoples native to this country in order to “discover” and “civilize” it. They invaded Africa, enslaved and deported its people, tortured those people into submission in order to build the first economy built on industrial agriculture and the value added to the products it produced and exported to Europe. When slavery was no longer legal systems like Jim Crow and the legislated disenfranchisement of Japanese, Mexican, Chinese and Native Americans guaranteed its economic and political advantages continued. The US military were enforcers of these policies.

Today the US military, especially the Army, is the most racially integrated part of US society. How the military conducts its primary function, warmaking, reveals what we have allowed ourselves to be integrated in to.

Citizen Soldiers
The military is proud of its core of citizen-soldiers, men and women like you and I (though mostly younger) who enlist for some level of participation in the Armed Services. Some are full-time regular forces. Most are National Guard and Reservists, that is, people holding jobs who agreed to serve a few days a month, a few weeks a year and on a limited full-time basis in a national emergency.

Most citizen-soldiers signed up for economic reasons, presented in the context of vaguely patriotic sentiments. Certainly Sept. 11 motivated some folks to enlist but the majority of the military were in place before that atrocity. A recent congressional hearing report showed that a disproportionate number of full time armed service personnel were from economically depressed rural and small town communities. These young people were looking for opportunities, looking for work. I suspect that most National Guard and Reservists have similar economic aspirations – they needed a job, a way to continue their education, a chance to better themselves in communities that could not fulfill the modest dreams of their children.

Indeed, the economics of this war reveals the increasing militarization of the private sector. Witness those flocking to private contractors such as Halliburton for jobs, many that at one time had been the province of the armed services. Today, everything from food service to determining how Iraqi prisoners will be tortured are jobs filled by people who think of themselves as civilians.

I have to state here that I have never been in the military, I have never aspired to military service and have been a life-long critic of how the US utilizes its armed forces throughout the world. I have been the recipient of the romanticized sanitized view of military life provided by television and movies. Even in this view there is a high premium placed on breaking down any resistance to authority, any tendency to independent thought that might interfere with obeying an order. Conformity is an important value in our society, especially in a time of national emergency after Sept. 11, supported by an increasingly popular evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity burgeoning throughout this country. This is the only reason I can see why troops who have been fully appraised of their rights under the Geneva Convention can perpetrate acts of torture. How else to explain how troops who have specific expectations of how they will be treated if taken prisoner can claim they were never told of the rights of “the enemy” under the same Convention of those they might capture and imprison as they invade someone else’s country. And if they were not told, isn’t this the triumph of conformity that not one of these soldiers could extrapolate from their own rights to think about the rights of others?

Is it a surprise then that in an environment where the leader of this country describe our activities in religiously insensitive ways – crusades against evil-doers – when any display of critical thought is described as unpatriotic, when the rights of citizenship are eroded by covert and overt actions of our government; is it a surprise then that our troops are willing to thoughtlessly carry out orders that destroy the humanity of prisoner and prison guard as well?

Pres. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, all our leaders responsible for this unjust and unnecessary war decry the actions of their troops and declare this is not what the military is about. But women enlistees are harassed and raped with depressing regularity. Some of the military police serving in Iraq serve in prisons and facilities in the US where detainees, who are US citizens, are molested, abused, beaten, killed.

Our leaders say the military represents our principles, us, citizens of this country. Yet many of us have allowed our leaders to perpetrate this war without question. We have not demanded to know how many civilians have been killed, how many Iraqi’s illegally detained, how many atrocities have been committed by the troops. We have not asked why our military are using the heinous tactics of the Israeli military, using helicopter gunships and fighter planes to bomb houses and cars in civilian areas of Afghanistan. We have not demanded to see the images of war – destruction of homes, the maiming of civilian and soldiers, death in its many forms. Our leaders think it would be too much for us, yet we can watch CSI’s stylized, glamorized dismemberment of the human body several times a week.

So, it all comes back to us. We must not hide behind the dangerously simplistic theology espoused by the president. We can no longer use Sept. 11 as an excuse to be afraid and look away. The people of Iraq, the people of the world are watching to see if we care enough to say no to this war. Those who claim to defend us in the military need to be saved from their own worst intentions and brought home. We as a people must find ways to come together and make it up to the world for the evil we have are perpetrating upon it.

Monday, May 17, 2004

Virgil T. Johnson

My father died May 4, 2004 at about 4:00 p.m. I had the privilege of being his brawny home health aid for the last six weeks of his life. The following is a combined version of his eulogy and newspaper death notice:


Virgil Johnson, my father, husband to Edna, father to Jena and William too, was a complicated man. It is that complexity that I most appreciated. When I was a little girl, just learning to read, my father would have me read the newspaper to him and then debate the meaning of the days’ news. In his final weeks of life he asked me to read the front page and the news of the Cleveland Indians, every day. And just like in my childhood, we discussed the meaning of the news and what he hoped for the world.

My father was born in Oakland Tennessee in a time when it was hard, indeed, unsafe to be a black man in the south. It is a testament to his resilience and his families sense of family that so many of the menfolk have lived into their 80's and 90's. My father, like his brothers, created families and businesses, prospering in ways they could have never predicted. In later years he shared memories of the good and the bad and marveled at how far we had come as a people.

Virgil Johnson was always learning something new: trying a new recipe, planting something new in the vegetable garden, indeed, becoming an organic gardener in his 70's. In his early 80's he and my mother went to his first national demonstration, the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington. They became life members of the NAACP.

My father had a tender side, which he expressed in many ways, perhaps the most touching was his commitment to rescuing animals abandoned in our immediate neighborhood. He would take in these cats and dogs and give them a home.

He loved his family in Tennessee, traveling to visit with them, when his health allowed, always accompanied by his special nephew Jesse Edward Gooden. As you can see he left us quite a legacy but he wanted his most lasting accomplishment to be that he left a secure life for his beloved wife, Edna. In that he was eminently successful.

Virgil Terrell Johnson was born in Oakland, Tennessee on October 13, 1916. He left Oakland and the farm at 22 living in Harrisburg, PA and working the in the steel mill before enlisting in the Army. He returned to civilian life, settling in Akron in 1946. Mr. Johnson married his devoted wife, Edna Lucille Finney, in 1956. He worked at General Tire for 35 years. Mr. Johnson frequently worked two jobs. He always found ways to express his love of farming and gardening. He always maintained one and frequently two vegetable gardens and labored to maintain a perfectly green lawn. He later founded Johnson’s Lawn Service which he operated for 25 years.
Mr. Johnson was an avid cook, always trying new recipes and experimenting with old. He was an excellent cake baker. He fished the Portage Lakes whenever he could frequently hauling in a bountiful catch. He was a devoted fan of the Negro Leagues and later the Cleveland Indians.
He was preceded in death by his parents Jesse and Mary Terrell Johnson, of Oakland. TN; brothers Laurence and Wis of Oakland, TN; and sisters Bea Gooden Person and Ola La Rue James of Akron, OH; , Ethelbelle Flipping of Memphis,TN; and Lennie Mary Edinburg of Oakland, TN.
Mr. Johnson is survived by his beloved wife, Edna L. Johnson; children, William G. Johnson and his wife Ginnie, Rebecca O. Johnson of Boston, MA and her partner Patricia Maher and Jena T. Johnson of Palmdale, CA and her partner Mary Jane; grandchildren, Miles and Alania Johnson; special nephew, Jesse Edward Gooden; many nieces, nephews, and dear friends.