Running on ice + Naomi Klein and when “being against” is better than “being for”

Yesterday I got up thinking: this snow ain’t got nuthin on me.  I’m running today, no way I’m not running.  Well, some things got in the way, like a broken furnace (now fixed, happily) and a number of other tasks.  It all worked out well, though, because in the back of my mind I was plotting my escape.

I figured that if I could just get down to the beach walk in the park near our house, I’d find a sun dried stretch of running ground that I could just loop back and forth on.  That plan was true–but getting down there was a trick.  What I found was that the process of running in ice and snow makes the run intense and focused–no gawking at scenery–but a real meditative eye towards where your next step will land.  Once on the dry walk by the beach, I could take in the sights, but getting in and getting out was a mind focusing exercise–and lovely!  3.75+ miles, my first good run since my cold.  Can’t wait to repeat today.

Naomi Klein is profiled in the New Yorker (Dec 8th) and it’s well worth spending some time on.  She’s an amazing woman with an honest, clear eye on the scoundrels who would fix the game of life in their favor at every turn. I first learned about her way back with her first book, No Logo and really resonated with her approach. Her new book, The Shock Doctrine, takes apart the Milton Friedman theory of “free markets” (good lord, has there ever been a more insidious example of double speak?) that has evolved over the last 30 years into a manipulated game in which disruptive events are either created or alternately seized upon in order to push through a whole slew of market deregulating legislations and market focused actions.

Examples:

Southeast Asia post-tsunami: the shoreline which was once inhabited by local populations is now sold off to Resorts, with a capital R.  Ditto Katrina.

Terrorist attacks of 911: the list is too numerous, but think broadly about the Patriot Act, the stike-first declaration of war, the appointment of czars and outsourcers like Blackwater.  Too numerous.

The subprime and Big Three bailout: we’re in the middle of a very nasty hostage crisis wherein we’re being told the end of the world will come if we don’t pay up.  To some degree, of course, very bad things will happen if these companies collapse, and those bad things will hit us hard.  But the thing is: seems like those bad things are happening anyway and we’re getting hit hard–so, what’s up?

Klein believes we’re beginning to learn, we’re beginning to recognize and pay attention to that little voice that says, Hmm, haven’t we been here before?

The New Yorker article reflects on her life and approach, and there’s an interesting section which explores the benefit of recognizing a bad approach and working to change it, while avoiding the trap of being stuck in “favor” of anything.  That alone is worth meditating on.

Her new book, which is definitely on my wish list, is The Shock Doctrine.

Craigslist for Service (reprinted from The CX Blog)

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craiglist.org, is by his own admission the Customer-Service-Agent-in-Chief of Craigslist. I’ve admired this guy for a long time and for all the reasons we all admire him, but I simply swooned with admiration when he posted his service manifesto on Change This back 2005 and eloquently laid out his philosophy of service and community.

He has begun to lay out a plan for creating a Craigslist for Service, and you can read the full article over at Huffington Post--it’s a good read.  There’s actually a good deal of discussion of this idea, but coming from the original Craig, maybe we’ll get some good traction here.

No surprise that he’s thinking big, inclusive thoughts about what Obama has called a Craigslist for Service. Craig supposes Obama might be using craigslist as a metaphor for something that doesn’t exist yet, but he’s all over the idea because it makes such perfect sense.  He’s thinking of channels into and out of this proposed center of service activity:

Here are four possible aspects of “a craigslist for service.”

1. If you have the time and inclination to get out, you might volunteer for an existing service organization, probably a recognized for-profit. There are sites which make this relatively easy, the most effective of which is VolunteerMatch.org.

2. You might have some cash you’d like to pool with others to get something done. Sites which make that happen include DonorsChoose.org, funding classroom projects, or Kiva.org, which provides micro-finance loans to small businesspeople.

3. You might have the time for traditional civic engagement, where you participate in local governance. For example, you might join the PTA, or just attend local city council or board of education meetings, or join the board of a small non-profit. That’s traditional grass-roots democracy, an important American tradition.

4. Online, you might get involved in the new grass-roots democracy, where you get increasingly smart about some aspect of national governance.

I’d recommend taking a look at change.gov, specifically the discussion of healthcare. It’s a great first step towards real networked, grassroots democracy.

Check out SunlightFoundation.com, which fosters sites which provides checks and balances on government. The Sunlight sites are about government transparency, like how money is used, and abused in government. I’d like people to get smart about some specific area, keep an eye on that, and report… problems.

Also, if you’re a technology fan, check out peertopatent.org, an existing program where you can help patent examiners check out new inventions.

5. To make this really happen, people need to declare themselves publicly, to commitment to some form of service, and follow through. This is like the pledge system of the Clinton Global Initiative, or pledgebank.com, or thepoint.com. We’ll need something which scales to the tens of millions, which also plugs into the social networking tools people actually use.

(Yes, that was five.)

Is there a cabinet post for Service?  There should be.

Me ‘n Jack Bauer: My 24 Marathon

24 Season 7 Trailer

A dear friend of mine who loves Jack Bauer more than even the other Jack is–as one might expect–very excited about the upcoming season premier. So excited that he’s having a small party of like minded friends to come over and share the moment with him…I think that’s very sweet and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Except….except, I don’t really know anything about 24. When he talks about Jack, I nod knowingly but I’ve just been faking it.

So, cuz I love my friend, I decided to become conversant with–nay, knowledgeable about, familiar with, aware of–that man of action with a truckload of personal problems, Jack Bauer. And I was going to do it before the season premier. Too bad I made that vow and accepted the invitation before I realized there were 6 seasons.

I ordered them all from the Seattle Public Library, and lucky me! They all came in at once. My mission now: finish all 24 episodes in two weeks, the due date for all six seasons. Do you realize what that means? That’s like 150 hours of tv watching or something–and this is someone who doesn’t watch a whole lot of TV. Okay, Rachel Maddow, but that’s different.

After the first few hours of the first season, I was a little horrified by the prospect.  I don’t know what I thought…I guess I never really thought about it at all: 24 means twenty-four hours. Each season is 24 hours long. Hello?

So I started to strategize–first seek patterns, then figure a path to completion. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I’m now in Season 3 and here’s what I’ve learned (probably every first year film student at USC knows this but it was news to me): You must watch the first episode. They lay down the main players, the crisis, the complicating factors that will be in play for the whole season. You may have to watch a good chunk of the second episode as well. But then you’ll want to go into full speed-view mode which on my laptop consists of this:

• keep the menu bar open on the full screen view–you’ll need it for fast action forwarding
• each episode consists of the following three things: What, How, Twist
  • The What: that moves each plot thread forward
  • The How: you can skip most of this, it’s the filler we watch really intently even though all we really want to know is the What
  • The Twist: that’s the unexpected thing they throw in right before the chapter ends that you can probably catch up on in the next chapter’s opening What
• After the first couple minutes of the chapter, click the forward button. You’ve got the What and you can skip to the next chapter.

If you do this quickly, it’s like one of those old fashioned cartoon flip books that you pfffftttt through really fast and see the characters actually move. Watching 24 like this has the same effect: if you watch 24 like Jack Bauer would watch 24–moving very quickly and intuitively from the first few minutes to the next chapter, you can watch an entire season in under two hours.

It’s still too long, and I may well skip an entire season or two if they don’t grab me in the first 5 minutes of the season premier, but I’m becoming quite fond of Jack–and am feeling confidently conversant about him. He’s a complex guy.

Funny what we happily do for dear friends.

Our Neighborhood Ice Cream Shop and Deli

The Husky Deli in West Seattle is local delight.  In the summer, the line for the ice cream counter stretches out the door; you can see kids twirling around on the old-fashioned soda counter stools–you know the kind, round, twirlable–happily licking the drips from their cones and trying to keep up with the melting concoction.

I stopped by there yesterday to get myself a pint of their original Husky Flake ice cream to take home, and the guy who helped me looked a tad older than the usual summer help they get.  I assumed he was part of the familly who founded the West Seattle landmark that the deli is.

Looking around, I noticed some photos up on the west wall that I hadn’t noticed before–they looked to span about 80 years.  I asked him who all the guys were, and he just beamed: “The one to the right of the clock was my Dad. Next to him is my grandfather who founded the deli. The other side of the clock are my uncles and they didn’t do much.”

Then he said, “My grandfather founded this in 1932.”  I marvelled at the timing of this, considering the whole world was in a depression at that point–tough time to be opening an ice cream shop.  I said as much to they guy as he was packing in a generous amount of Husky Flake into the pint container (happy me!).

He said, “yeah, but you know, they got a grant to make ice cream cones that they delivered to the local schools, so they were busy every single day making those ice cream cones and delivering them.”

I asked if that was part of a PWA grant and he nodded, “yeah, the kids were happy, my grandfather was happy–worked all day and night, but happy.”

Husky Deli is still thriving to this day, more than 70 years later.  It’s a strong part of our entire community, and a local gathering place.  It was born in the midst of a crisis but hung on with government help.

That’s small business and government at its very finest. I cannot think of a better example of a win/win situation.

Here’s my question: Can you imagine our current government having the leadership and vision to fund a massive PWA in this day and age?  No, it’s simply out of the question.  The less taxes/small government people who insist they are for the small business man and woman would jettison the idea before it ever saw light of day.  That’s the party of fear, not progress.  The party of small thoughts, not big dreams.

And we would all be the poorer for that approach, because the time is perfect for a massive mobilization of grit and ingenuity focused on the environment and energy challenges.