Today's Tidbits

"Because you kept your progressive mouth shut, I am gonna leave you a tip" my client proclaimed today. I know he was happy to leave with a lot less pain then he arrived. One has got to love those charming customers that are able to keep a sense of humor. We laughed heartily and yes, I did not engage in a conversation about my new 'Occupy Santa Fe'  bumper sticker, he of course noticed, nor about the Canadians hoping to arrest former President Bush during his visit, same as the French and Spainiards threatened.
Meanwhile our Occupy Santa Fe Encampment has grown to a full circle of tents, a beautiful sight to behold. I picked a humongous amount of greens, mainly Mustard and a little bit left over Kale from the Community Garden right across from the camp. I felt justified by the prognosis of imminent snow, hard to believe with weather warm enough to be out and about in a summer dress. I managed to stir fry all the greens and  mix them in with a whole pot of millet. I packed that and 12 hard boiled eggs  on to my bike and brought it all back to camp, just in time for dinner - a good feeling.

The Occupiers took it upon themselves to clean the bathrooms, a welcome service to the community. The street folks have been out in force it seems at the park with police nowhere in sight. The occupiers take turns in keeping watch during the night, a prudent thing to do. Some horror stories surfaced of folks entangled with families and alcohol. The Occupiers will have to hold a fine balance as regards their role  and boundaries at the encampment with the street folks that have been occupying our park all along.

Moral Outrage Fuels The Occupy Movement

These last almost 2 weeks have been busy since the start of my involvement with Occupy Santa Fe/Occupy Wall Street, really Occupy Everywhere. The first day I arrived at the encampment across from the Bank of America, after that first big demonstration on October 8th, I simply joined a group of protesters and held up my own erasable board with my message. I live right near the birthplace of the nuclear bomb, Los Alamos, one of the wealthiest communities in the US, that of course thrives, due to their focus on military defense, rather then a focus on green sustainable invention in science. I am outraged at the money that flows in to military spending and I want it to stop!

Soon though I realized that there is wisdom in not making outright demands, yet. This now global movement just emerged. It is crucial to not splinter off in separate factions, to not alienate too many with our individual grievances. But it is time, it is truly time, we are overdue for a rising up and making our voices heard. This is what I believe. Injustice, not just economic, but social runs through the whole fabric of our American society, it is truly shameful.

George Lakoff is right when he calls the Occupy movement a positive and moral force that contrary to the Tea Party does not only care for it self, but includes the 99 percent (in Santa Fe we like to not be divisive and think of it as the 100%) as well as animal and environmental welfare along with world wide inclusiveness. The occupy movement does not hinge on camping out and partying, but it is about a deep moral outrage brought forth in a peaceful, non-violent manner, which may include civil disobedience.

The 99 Percent Declaration states a list of grievances, not approved by Occupy Wall Street, but certainly worth our contemplation and discussions. What follows are a few points of theirs of my choice:
1. Implementing an immediate ban on all private contributions of money and gifts, to all politicians in federal office, from individuals, corporations, "political action committees", "super political action committees", lobbyists, unions and all other private sources of money or thing of value to be replaced by the fair, equal and total  public financing of all federal political campaigns. We categorically REJECT the concepts that corporations are persons or that money is equal to free speech because if that were so, then only the wealthiest people and corporations would have a voice.  
5.  A complete reformation of the United States Tax Code to require ALL citizens to pay a fair share of a progressive, graduated income tax by eliminating loopholes, unfair tax breaks, exemptions and deductions, subsidies (e.g. oil, gas and farm) and ending all other methods of evading taxes. The current system of taxation favors the wealthiest Americans, many of whom, pay fewer taxes to the United States Treasury than citizens who earn much less and pay a much higher percentage of income in taxes to the United States Treasury. We, like Warren Buffet, find this income tax disparity to be fundamentally unjust.
6. Medicare for all American citizens or adoption of a single-payer healthcare system. The Medicaid program, fraught with corruption and fraud, will be eliminated except for the purpose of providing emergency room care to indigent non-citizens who will not be covered by the single-payer healthcare system. 
12. Recalling all military personnel at all non-essential bases ...
20. An immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan ...  
Finally, I do believe the US needs a 3. non-partisan, independent party, eventually.
We are the 99 Percent!
It is time.
We got the power in numbers.
We will be silent no more.

Occupy Santa Fe Encampment

Since the first demonstration last Saturday, Occupy Santa Fe has spontaneously created and manned an encampment right across the Bank of America. The big tent is stacked with art supplies for the making of signs and holds tables and chairs for peaceful assemblies. Meetings will be held 6 pm every day of this week until the big event next Saturday, October 15th, 10 am at the Round House. This will be an assembly from the people, for the people. No politicians or political parties will be allowed to take over with their agendas. There will be no PA system, but the human mic will be employed, same as it's done on Wall Street, with people repeating each sentence, so as to really take in the spirit and take to heart what is voiced.

Our Major and the police are well aware of these first stirrings of what we hope will be a movement for positive change. They have expressed their support. Will you join in and show your support? People are needed at this camp, day and night. I will be there again tomorrow 4-6 pm and expect to attend the evening meetings this week. I estimate about 50 concerned citizens showed up for today's meeting and I was glad to find myself among a very well functioning, organized, civilized, friendly group of spirited people. Check out this Occupy Together Field Manual.

Occupy Santa Fe - Video

Occupy Santa Fe

In Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
We are the 99%
Dr. Lakind, Protester and Activist
Awake!
Tax Cheat
Dad insisted on attending today's protest.
 Eloquent Jewish Mom
Objects in 3 Billion/Year Aid to Israel 
while Education is threatened with cuts.
Bank of Avarice
Corporate Personhood
Corporations and Congress
Balance the Budget on OUR Backs
 My neighbor Amba
wants corporate money 
out of politics and climate.
I could not agree more.
It's good to have like-minded neighbors.
It's about time people take to the streets!
They are, and not just in Santa Fe,
and not just the young,
or poor, or uneducated ones.

It's about time


What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible. - Guardian

Bring back the troops!
Stop the occupations!
Close military bases across the world!
Why is the US still stationed in Germany?
The free market does not protect the worker.
We need unions!
Universal Health Care for all!
No one in their right mind 
can believe these protests are about Debit Card fees.
 Banks were given bail out money with no strings!
Executives received obscene and immoral bonuses,
while home owners were left to hang and dry.

They have taken homes
through an illegal foreclosure process,
despite not having the original mortgage.

We come to you at a time when corporations -- 
which place profit over people,
self-interest over justice, 
and oppression over equality -- 
run our governments.

Voila, a hotchpotch of slogans
taken off the net, mainly facebook,
not my original thoughts,
but all resonating in my heart.
Weather permitting I will take to the street tomorrow.

Occupy Wall Street

Eloquent Manifesto
dramatically read by Keith Olbermann
in text rather then video format, for now:

The statement issued from Zuccotti Park by the general assembly at Occupy Wall Street.

    "As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members. That our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. That a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people, and the Earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

    We come to you at a time when corporations -- which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality -- run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.

    They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

    They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.

    They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in workplaces based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

    They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

    They have profited off the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

    They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

    They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is, itself, a human right.

    They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker's health care and pay.

    They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.

    They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams, but look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

    They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

    They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

    They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

    They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

    They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

    They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

    They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives, or provide relief in order to protect investments that havealready turned a substantial profit.

    They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

    They purposefully kept people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

    They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

    They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

    They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

    They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

    To the people of the world,

    We, the New York City general assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

    Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.


    To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

    Join us and make your voices heard."

Support Occupy Santa Fe
Occupy Santa Fe will hold a rally Saturday, October 8th,
at Bank of America, Saint Francis and Paseo de Peralta
10 am to 5 pm.

Steve Jobs - October 5, 2011

Apple changed my life,
thanks to the creative genius of Steve Jobs.
What a giant of a man! 
We mourn his premature passing.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

I remember my commutes across the bay in the late nineties, with billboards along 580 doing for once for me what they were designed to do - invoke a desire for the product they advertised. Those iBooks in their sleek design and their cute colors (purple my favorite, but the blue one was on sale refurbished) looked like something I might actually want to lay my eyes on, have near me and learn how to use. 

"I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list....That didn't look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of lomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away.

That's what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds."

I took to the Apple iBook like a Mermaid takes to water. Not a geek by any means I was able to learn, mostly by myself and would not be here without an Apple laptop, I am currently still only on my second iBook, now in it's 7th year of use.

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." 

This quote of Steve's sure rings true in my ears and supports my experience in my approach to bodywork. Clients would show up for one, usually superficial reason, relaxation, and leave often with an epiphany. They had no idea, about the state of their bodies, their true needs and wants! Steve Jobs differed in that he knew how to advertise his products. He knew how to create a desire for products we had no idea yet we wanted, much less needed. He also had inventions for sale that could be looked at, held, inspected, played and experimented with. Very different from my selling an experience that comes and then goes and gets forgotten, or at best stored as a cherished memory in some deep dark recesses of the brain.

"[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

Jobs had grown Apple into the world’s most valuable technology company through his scrupulous attention to detail and his ability to, in his own words, marry technology with liberal arts and humanities to “make our hearts sing.” Huffington Post

"... great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people."

Many blame Apple for manufacturing their products outside the US and depriving Americans of badly needed jobs. Laws may need changing in this respect, but to blame a company for choosing cheaper labor in areas of the world with lower living standards is excessively idealistic and unreasonable. What may constitute worker exploitation needs to be adjusted to each culture, but world wide basic standards ought to apply. Nobody wants to exploit child labor, yet some children are rather happy to be able to work. I started a paying job, illegally then in Switzerland at the age of 14, and loved it! Maybe a hefty import tax would solve the problem?

Steve Jobs died of complications of Pancreatic Cancer, diagnosed in 2004. He worked as CEO of Apple until 6 weeks prior to his passing. "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," Apple

President Barack Obama said Jobs was "among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it. "

 RIP Steve Jobs!

In A Quiet Celebratory Mood

It must be canine heaven to race free on trails and across meadows, up on the mountain along a stream in National Forrest, where the rules of society no longer apply, where there is freedom.
  
The green grass seems to transform both of my pups in to cows, chomping away happily. I do not believe as a remedy for their sick stomachs. They simply seem to like the taste of  juicy green grass, not so easy to come by in our high desert climate where lawns really have no  sane reason for existence.  I am reminded of my surprise in discovering the sweetness of Wheat Grass, an alkalizer to our too often acidic blood stream.

It is Sumo's 6th birthday, but a trip up the mountain was sadly not in the cards. Instead we are in a quiet, celebratory mood. Sumo was overjoyed with our walk out the door by 7 am (earlier then usual.)  They got to explore the nearby park off lead for a change, even though it is illegal and could result in a  hefty fine. Of course Sumo had to immediately check out all the places we usually avoid, such as the kid's playground, where the Squirrels like to hide and the ditch, too close to  the train tracks for my comfort.

A treat even before and while breakfast was being prepared was nothing to sneeze at either. Freshly boiled chicken with sweet potatoes certainly pleased our Isabella-girl, but I am not so sure about our birthday-boy. I had to hand feed him and the kitty the first few bites. Maybe too much of the good and healthy stuff like added Brewer's Yeast, Flaxseeds and Braggs? 

Getting a chance to accompany me on errands, running along side my bike was a definite winner. We have been doing less of that, because I do not like to leave our Isabella-girl behind as she should not stress her joints and has not been running since early Spring. Sumo is such a good boy though, attentive and so obedient and all too eager to exert himself.

Gizzards for dinner were a hit, no doubt. I am not a fan of raw, red meat, but I do understand that some is good for dogs and cats and Sumo looks a bit too skinny to me of late. Maybe all those 12 mile runs with Eric (see below.) Love does go through the stomach, does it not? I am no fan of human-like celebrations for our pets, but believe a bit of extra love, attention and morsels of their liking will go a long way.

It's raining cats and dogs since mid-afternoon, so instead of our evening walk it will be some more cuddling. We need the rain and will not complain. Sumo is great company, very easy to live with, sweet, attentive, non-demanding, very expressive, sometimes impish, mischievous and outright funny.