Well, not me. I have a roof over my head and I suspect most of you do, too.

Some people in Haiti (among other places) are in a bad way though, and the people of Daily Kos are doing something about it.

   
Inside a Shelter Box

I know, I usually think of DK as being good at producing a groundswell of mass hysteria and little else, but I admit that when they do get their heads and their hearts together, they can produce really good things. Strength in numbers and all that, with people being able to give as little as $5.00 to as much as they want to and, so far, they have been able to purchase 118 Shelter Boxes for the people of Haiti.

   
Shelter Boxes in action

Here is the information for anyone wanting to add their bit to the effort:

 

SUPPORT SHELTER to 20222 and you will donate $5

Send the word SHELTERBOX to 56512 to send more money (you will get a

phone call back asking for amount and credit card info).

If you’d like to make a $10 donation to support our Haiti earthquake relief work via your mobile phone, text the message Support Shelter to the number 20222. Answer Yes when asked to confirm your donation. You will then receive a text message confirming your donation.

Here  is the  
Secure donation page  
https://app.etapestry.com/...

United States Shelterbox page

http://www.shelterboxusa.org/

Canada Shelterbox  
http://www.shelterbox.ca/   
Shelter Box home page  
http://shelterbox.org/

Or click over to the Daily Kos Shelter Box tag and see what they are up to.

… that are pictures?  - Toni Morrison (Beloved)

(photo from here )

There were maybe a hundred “illegal” people milling about, but it’s that little girl spinning in the Miami sunshine, her ribboned braids flying while her dress billowed, making those skinny legs look even skinnier that I remember. She was only about 6 or 7 and so beautiful and hopeful and expectant. And so loved. Her best foot – tiny and clad in brilliant white patent leather and ruffled, lacy socks – would be forward when she reached the shores of a land that didn’t want her. Her momma, her daddy, had made sure of that.

A blip in the crowd waiting to be arrested, processed and sent back, she filled my TV screen with her exuberance, her love of life, of the moment she was in. I smiled at her joy, marveled that she was so bright and fresh after getting off that rickety boat, wondered if she was doomed.

This is my day to write about Haiti.

I did have an article all planned. Been gathering material for it, blocking out the points I wanted to make and all that was left was the writing.

But the writing of that wouldn’t come. Only the echoes of a little girl dancing at the edges of my memory, flashing her huge smile and her shiny shoes and her fluffy white dress with the big, pink bow.

Care

[ETA, from this article, “The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Children”]

The answer is not to stop loving, or to stop trying to understand, but to realize that our love is always endangered by selfishness. If we ever think our love is pure, we need to stop thinking along that track, take a step back and think again. Don’t stop loving, just stop thinking that your love is infallible and all-knowing.

I’ll close with a few reality-based ways to help Haitian children in Haitian families in the short term:

- Donate to SOS Children’s Villages, Save the Children or UNICEF.  
- Sign this AIUSA petition to request an end to interdiction-at-sea policy  
- Contact your representative. Ask them to support an increase in refugee visas for Haitians and expedited family reunification visas for Haitian-Americans. Ask them to support the airlift of Haitian children unaccompanied by family ONLY for the purposes of temporary medical hosting and NOT for the purposes of adoption.  
- If you live close to a Haitian-American community, contact their organizations and ask if there is anything you can do to support community efforts.

(photo from here)

It doesn’t look like I’m giong to get my Haiti article done today - but not for lack of trying! There is, of course, still time - it’s not even 4pm on the west coast yet. But unless I can find a bit of quiet time somewhere, it’s just not on.

The thing is, I had it all planned out, what I was going to write, and the darn thing just kept moving in a different direction so, taking far to long to get it, I eventually decided to follow. It won’t be any great treatise or anything (I tend not to write any of those) but it’ll be whatever it is. Whenever it’s quiet enough again to hear what I am writing.

In other news, though, I got part of the site fixed that I messed up. I had things pointing to the wrong place, which is why the articles weren’t showing up when you clicked on the title or posted a comment. That’s fixed. Other little stuff is still wrong, but nothing as important as that.

i need to find out if we can revert back to a previous version or move forward, if there is a new one. I’m about to throw this one out the window.

Anyway, there are issues with the site (I messed up the coding, surprise, surprise) but I can’t fix them because EE won’t allow me to save anything – or will rarely allow me to, anyway. It just keeps looping around to the control panel whenever I try to save a template or edit a post or whatever. Extremely annoying.

Will have to find arin and tell her I messed up, the site’s messed up, EE’s messing up, we’re all just a mess - see what she can do, lol.

Over the past couple of weeks or so I’ve seen posts from this site at various community blogs, but have not, until now, clicked on any (the post titles are pretty boring sounding – for instance, the one I clicked on was titled “More of Your Responses Are In”). It turns out, though, to be pretty interesting.

Nourishing the Planet, one of a network of blogs from the Worldwatch Institute, appears to highlight various sustainable agriculture practices being put into place around the world – from small backyard plots to large farm collectives.

In one four-part series ( Malawi’s Real “Miracle”, Improving Livelihoods and Nutrition with Permaculture (video), Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops (video), and Sweeping Change )  Danielle Nierenberg visits Kristof and Stacia Nordin in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Malawi is one of the many, many places and things I don’t know much about, and agriculture is another (I kill all plants) but I wanted to mention this particular series because of various thoughts brought to mind while reading it.

Here is the first paragraph:

 

Stacia and Kristof Nordin have an unusual backyard. Rather than the typical bare dirt patch of land that most Malawians sweep “clean” every day, the Nordins have over 200 varieties of mostly indigenous vegetables growing organically around their house. They came to Malawi in the 1990s as Peace Corps Volunteers, but now call Malawi home. Stacia works for the Malawi Health Ministry, educating both policy-makers and citizens about the importance of indigenous vegetables and permaculture for improving livelihoods and nutrition.

Okay, nothing new there. Western people going to Africa (or South America, or other places) and deciding to stay – at least for a while – and teach, help, so on. But then this caught my eye:

 

Malawi may be best known for the so-called “Malawi Miracle.” Five years ago the government decided to do something controversial—provide fertilizer subsidies to farmers to grow maize. Since then maize production has tripled and Malawi has been touted as an agricultural success story.

But the way they are refining that corn, says Kristof, makes it “kind of like Wonderbread,” leaving it with just two or three nutrients. Traditional varieties of corn, however, which aren’t usually so highly processed, are more nutritious and don’t require as much artificial fertilizer compared to hybrid varieties. According to Kristof, “48 percent of the country is still stunted with the miracle.”

Stacia and Kristof use their home as a way to educate their neighbors about both permaculture and indigenous vegetables. Most Malawians think of traditional foods, such as amaranth and African eggplant, as poor people foods grown by “bad” farmers. But these crops may hold the key for solving hunger, malnutrition and poverty in Malawi.[Ed. emphasis mine]

And I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought. How did that come about? or maybe, How familiar that seems? So often food indigenous to regions, and to cultures, is derided to the point where, if it’s not pre-packaged or doesn’t have a big name label on it, it’s no longer considered “good food”. I really have no idea of that is what happened in Malawi – I know even less about that country than I do about agriculture. But it wouldn’t surprise me.

Anyway, one for the blogroll that I will be putting together. The whole series is an informative read/watch. As are other people and places they have highlighted on the blog, some of which I’ll probably post about over the next few weeks.

Once again.

 cartoon from toothpastefordinner.com

Haiti hurt my heart. I’m not sure why as I don’t, as far as I know, know any Haitians, nor have I ever been there. It just did. And unlike many writers/bloggers, when big, bad things hit, my first instinct isn’t to write about it, to react instantly – it’s to go silent. And think. Or mourn. Observe. Then maybe write.

This is me in offline life, as well, so I am not sure that I can change that feature (or bug) of mine, but I am going to make an effort.

Anyway, though silent I have not been idle, writing wise. I have a couple of articles started – one on Haiti, due Monday for Human Beams, and another on Obama and brands, due Wednesday for Serenity. And then a very surface history piece for Book of Louis about the women I had been missing (but then found) who were enslaved in the US. That is due Friday.

What is all this “due” stuff, you may be asking? Well, I’ve also decided to do an editorial type calendar, committing myself to a certain amount of writing for each site per week – plus whatever nattering I happen to do in between the scheduled articles. Now, considering that I’ve already missed one deadline for each (all the dates have been moved back, lol) this may take a little getting used to, for me, to get into the groove. But get into it I will.

I am posting this at all three sites (I know, cheating!) to get something up, and also to be accountable to more than myself. Ack!

What an abominable tragedy. My thoughts are with everyone there and their loved ones around the world.

Here is a Daily Kos diary with links to places to offer help and other info.

Twitter.

I mentioned yesterday that I was going to leap – into committing to writing for this and other sites even if I didn’t yet have a reliable computer or quiet space to write - and let the net appear.

Well, as the title implies, I have half my net. I am typing on my new laptop that I was just able to get last night. It’s primarily for (and due to) classes, but it will certainly come in handy elsewhere. I’m fairly sure i got a good deal, the best for the money I was willing to spend and it’s got Windows 7, so I am happy. Now I just have to re-learn to type without Blackberry’s little helpful shortcuts. I keep clicking the space key twice and expecting that not only will a full stop be applied to the previous sentence but that my next letter will be automatically capitalized, and other stuff. Oh, well… a little backspacing never hurt anyone. A full-sized laptop can seem HUGE, though, to someone who has gotten used to an itty bitty screen.

What i am still lacking is the quiet place to write – but I where there is a will and all that. And there needs to be a will if I want to write anything besides general blather, such as this. And since generally blathering is not my goal, though it’s fun sometimes, I need to make this work somehow.

I tried to write about Miep Gies this morning. She passed away yesterday at the age of 100. My piece, should I get it written, is not actually about her so much as about her spirit, her actions and that same gene (for action, even if the face of personal danger) that dwells in untold numbers of people. I first heard Miep’s name and story from an elderly Muslim man who was, in a way, wondering where all those untold numbers of people were – when New Orleans (and surrounding areas) was being left to drown after Katrina.

So, if I want to write as I wish to about heroes, about the people who are today working to do things to make this world a better place, I’d better get out my needle and thread and make the other half of the net myself.

(photo at the top is from Anoop Negi’s photostream – lovely stuff)

... if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. Anne Lamott

I should have found this quote the other day but it will do just as well for today. Dawn is sometimes a long time breaking.

I had other options for quotes; after all, there are zillions of people who have said quotable things, but what caught my eye about this one was the word “stubborn”.

Stubborn. So often that is a negative. A stubborn child (I was said to be one). A stubborn stain. A stubborn man or woman, who won’t budge from a wrong path. Bad things that won’t go away everywhere are said to be stubborn.

But some things should be, must be stubborn.

Hope. Without that, life would be unendurable for a good portion of the world.

Generosity. I had never thought of a stubborn generosity - of spirit, of time, of money - until I read a future friend’s work that mentioned it. But after that, I’ve seen an abundance of examples of it in many places past and present.

Friendship. Lasting through the good and the bad, pursued despite time and distance, nourished and propped up when it flags, greeted anew after time away - I’d say that many lasting friendships are of the stubborn variety.

Belief. In one’s self or in someone else (or, if you are so inclined, in spiritual matters). For all the pop culture hoopla over believing in yourself, I am not sure all that many do. Even some of the more successful people. They may believe in their abilities, to great monetary or professional success, but in themselves? I’m not so sure, for many. To me that is something much different and separate from just what is conventionally considered success.

And you can hardly do a more stubborn thing than trust. In yourself, surely. That’s a lifelong lesson to be learned, for some. Trusting in someone else is, at times, easier - though still the height of stubbornness.

I think I like this.

Here’s to living a stubborn life today. And all the tomorrows.