Beyond attending rallies and marches protesting the various wars and occupations that the US has been involved in or supported very heavily over our lifetimes (big *auuugh*), there's been a lot of ways technology has been used to give power to our voices, and organize that power in large numbers. Many groups have forms you can fill out with a pre-formatted, customizable letter that will be forwarded to your state or federal legislators, which they'll determine based on your street address. Other web sites have created on-line petitions, making it easier to collect lists of folks supporting a cause without having to go door-to-door. But this? Oh man, this steps it up to a whole other level:

It began with a drive for 20,000 signatures at Rethink Afghanistan’s website, but folks who added their signatures were also given instructions for participating in the Facebook (Facebook) protest.

Hundreds of people have posted the following message or something very close to it to the White House page:

“President Obama, I am one of more than 20,000 signers of this petition from Rethink Afghanistan: ‘In your State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, I want you to provide a concrete exit strategy for our troops in Afghanistan that begins no later than July 2011 and which completes a withdrawal of combat troops no later than July 1, 2012.’ Petition: http://bit.ly/7romlW“

Since a protest like this asks folks to post the comment on the White House's Facebook page, your organization doesn't even need it's own Facebook page to make something like this part of your campaigns!! But what really makes this genius is it makes voicing your dissent more public than a phone call or an e-mail. With those traditional forms of communicating with our legislators, it's one voice being heard by one person. But when you post a message on your legislator's Facebook page, anyone else who looks at the their page--more than likely other folks in your same constituency--could potentially see your comments. Taken more locally, if you (or your organization if you're organizing a campaign) posts messages on your State Rep or City Alderman's Facebook or Twitter pages, other constituents could potentially see your message and say to themselves "yea, that is messed up! wtf?!!"

Is this much more power than we as constituents in a governed body have ever really had before?

A few days ago, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. Government buildings crumbled to the ground along with a countless number of schools, hospitals and homes. The pictures and reports coming to us can only convey a fraction of the pain that must be over there, making it all the more heartbreaking. Many of my friends are talking about how to donate to Haiti. Here's some thoughts on how to be more mindful of where and how you give.

Text message donations
Donations made via text message can take up to 90 days to reach the organizations. :-( mGive is the main company helping organizations like the Red Cross provide this service, and on their FAQ:

"How long does it take for a donor's gift to reach the intended cause or charity?

The distribution of funds is based on the quarterly carrier payout schedule. Every 90 days the carriers disburse the funds generated from your mobile donation campaign to The mGive Foundation which then passes those funds along to your organization along with a detailed remittance report for each donation campaign you have."
http://www.mgive.com/FAQ/Default.aspx

Ooooofff... This method of donating might be easier for us, but that seems to be about the extent of it... Although I'm sure your donation will still be much appreciated in three months, just be aware that you're money won't get to the ground as quickly as you're able to send the text message.

US-based orgs can *only* send goods overseas
The US has a policy that organizations that send aid to other countries cannot send that aid in the form of a bulk of money -- they must buy American goods and send them over. This might be good for our local economy and business, but it also means a big part of your donations are paying for fuel and freight costs. This may not be as much of an issue for Haiti, because orgs in Haiti may choose to get supplies from our gulf states anyway. They may choose to. The also may choose to get supplies from the Dominican Republic. Or Cuba. Or other places much closer, affordable, and economical for them to get supplies from. But this is an especially troublesome policy when our government and orgs want to help with disaster relief in Africa or Asia, like after the tsunami hit in 2004. Shipping bottles of water on a plane from the US to South and East Asia probably isn't the most economical way to get clean water to those countries. Giving them cash, and letting them decide and control where they get their relief supplies is a much more economical way to help. Something else to keep in mind when donating to US-based orgs like the Red Cross.

Speaking of the Red Cross...
I'm usually wary about donating to really, really, really big non-profits. I feel like because they're so big, they sometimes can't operate on very progressive politics. But beyond that, I just never know if they're so bloated that only a fraction of my money will actually make it to the ground. With the Red Cross's International Response Fund, you're donating to a big pool of money that the Red Cross will use to provide support to "countless crises, like the recent earthquake in Haiti" (http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main, emphasis mine). You're money might go directly to Haiti right away, or it could go into a mutual fund where it'll collect interest for a few years, then eventually help with a disaster that hits another country in 2015. It looks like they're also collecting money now outside their International Response Fund, with language that sounds like it'll be used specifically for Haiti. But I'm still wary.

Moreover, the Red Cross got a lot of criticism during Katrina and 9/11 with how they managed their donations: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9518677 and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4851428.stm

In light of all this, it's important to remember however you decide to give, I'm sure it will be much appreciated!! But if you're interested in being more critical about where and how you give, keep these things in mind. If you're interested in donating to an org directly in Haiti, as me and my partner have done, here's a place that has come up a lot with my Facebook friends:

Haiti Action:
http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/HERF.html

Do your own research, and donate to places you feel confident in.

Just watching the third debate tonight, I heard for the first time the term "pro-abortion." used by McCain, it conjures up nasty images of people pushing for others to have abortions. Wondering if I was out of touch about pro-choice-pro-life terminologies, I did a Google search for "pro-abortion" and only one website came up, which describes pro-abortion as basically pro-choice. The website was run by another site call allaboutgod.com.

Are McCain and other conservatives trying to use the term "pro-abortion" instead of "pro-choice" to make those of us who support a woman's right to choose look like monsters who want to murder babies? If so, aaauuuuugh... If not, where did this term come from?

Props to Kelly Tsai: I'm not black or white, but I'm not "whatever" either.

This is horrible, and absolutely disgusts me:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West—the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail—were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to—Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
from daily kos

Although there has been no direct link established between Obsession and the events in Ohio, the documentary is clearly having an effect. The founder of the Interfaith Youth Core received a call from a Lutheran pastor, who told him that "his congregation has been involved in several interfaith projects, including allowing a group of Muslims to use the church for worship on Friday evenings while their new mosque was being built. ... But recently, this pastor has fielded several angry phone calls from congregants condemning the decision to allow 'dangerous people' to use church space. Why these calls now ... Last week, his community received the film 'Obsession' in the Sunday newspaper.
from raw story

Yet, the police covering the case don't see it as a hate crime?

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.
from Dayton Daily News

I can't even find words to say about this.

Our government and media has brewed so much hate against the muslim community in our country. there's always an ambiguously defined "other" that our government uses as a fear tactic, so it can go on with whatever hate-filled plans it has, and for years now they've been trying to frame the muslim community as that "other". Post-9/11, we were worried about "rogue"-governments getting access to chemical and biological weapons to attack the us with. Now who's being attacked with chemical weapons, and where? The same attacks our government is waging overseas is being replicated and made domestically on the same group they've defined as hating America. I'm disgusted, and fuming right now.

Moreover, no one's covering this story. It took me forever to get some info about this. I guess Palin's latest fumbles are more important?

More info on the film's distribution.

Has it really been a year since I last updated this diary? Wow, time does fly. I stopped updating it last summer when things got really busy, cause I got married in the fall, which was really awesome. Life since then has been great, we went to Argentina for three weeks for our honeymoon, then packed Sheena's car up and drove from the east coast to Chicago. Life in the same city has been fantastic, better than either of us could have imagined. We're enjoying summer in the Chi, spending hours at the lakefront on the South Side with books in tow, sharing good food, seeing performances, doing all the things we wanted to do together while we were long-distance. We're making our home our home slowly but surely, too. We just painted our living room and kitchen a few weeks ago, and are still getting some of our artwork up on the walls and whatnot. Oh yea, and we're actually putting artwork on the walls! Our walls are happy.

We've also been shopping the farmers market that comes through the loop over the summers. It's sweet being able to buy stuff, and actually being able to use it before it goes bad, now that two of us cooking and eating! We picked up some kale last time, that we've been cooking up with sesame oil and garlic on a friends recipe recommendation. Mmm-mmm good! The garlic we also picked up from the market, I never knew how great truly fresh garlic was.

We're going to see The Dark Knight tonight, which I imagine is going to be freaking awesome. Here's some teasers, in case you haven't been up on it:

Things have been busy with the wedding planning and stuff, we're only a month away! I'm so unbelievably excited. I went to Connecticut this past weekend and we got our marriage license, we met with the priest for our catholic wedding and went over a lot of the details, we made the dandiya for our garba—all very, very exciting! I've been reading a bunch though, on my commutes to a from work when I'm not riding my bike. Check out some of my latest reads:

• The History of Love: A Novel, by Nicole Krauss—This was such a delight to read. It's about an old man, Leo Gursky, who grew up in Poland during World War II, and still carries a lot of emotional trauma with him from his time there. during the most intense times of the war, he had to hide in an effort to make it seem like he wasn't really there, like he didn't exist. Now much older, he purposefully does random things to make sure other people recognize his existence, like spilling a full bucket of popcorn at the counter at the movies to see if people will turn their heads to notice, helping him believe he does in fact exist. his story unfolds as his son, an established author who's never known Leo, passes away and leaves behind chapters of a never-published book. a parallel story of a young girl name Alma who was named after the main character of a book call 'The History of Love' unfolds as her single mother who works as a translator gets a random letter in the mail requesting her to translate 'The History of Love' into English. The two stories eventually come together in the end, after a long unravelling of the history of the book this book is about. It's really good! Really well written, with funny, quircky characters who are also at times deeply saddening.
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini—Good Lord, what a depressing book! It starts in the 70s in Afghanistan. Amir is a son of a rich man who has a servent who also has a son who lives and works for them, Hassan. Amir and Hassan, although from different class backgrounds are best friends, but Amir has a lot of mixed ideas of what it means to be friends with someone of a lower class. He comes to points in the book where he has to decide to publicly stick up for Hassan or not, and his decisions follow him throughout the rest of the book. Amir eventually flees Afghanistan after the Russia's invasion and ends up in America, where decades later he has to return to Afghanistan and confront his past in a new way. It's very well written, with a lot of historical detail expressed through very real characters who were easy to connect with, especially being South Asian as a reader. The class dynamics within the culture of the characters, and how oppression propagates itself in many ugly ways through non-action was a screaming example of how messed up our world is, and how it gets to be that way generation after generation. But good Lord, what a depressing book! Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does... but still, probably a very real depiction of Afghanistan over the past 30 years.
• In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alverez—A less depressing book than the Kite Runner, but sad nonetheless. It was about 4 sisters that helped fight against an oppressive dictator during Dominican Republic's revolution, told through the perspectives of each sister as the story progresses. Another fictional book that was filled with history that was interesting to learn, written through a story that keeps pulling you through.

Last time Sheena came into town, we were listening to a lot of Nirvana. Aaaaah the memories, of wearing flannel shirts over concert t-shirts and ripped jeans; of thrashing, moshing, and body-surfing and not calling it dancing; of first using our instruments as tools to make noise, then turning it into music. When we were in a band, Nirvana was one of Tolgar's bigger influences, and we ended up doing a good handful of covers. Aneurysm, D7, and other b-sides and covers Nirvana did that no one ever heard of. Lol.

Nowadays I'm making music that's more focused on purity of tone, and ridding all the nuances blips and squeaks that dirty up my sound. quite a contrast from yanking, banging, and thumping my strings between low rolling basslines. But Nirvana and loud noise will still hold a special place in my heart, so I'm sure I'll turn into an old man that'll associate the group with memories that the next generation will have no grasp of, and probably consider them "classic rock" or some lame genre term like that. Worthless.

Sunday afternoon I played a benefit for Yawp!, an Asian youth writing program in Chicago. I played sitar with two writers, sarwat rumi and imi rashid. The event was awesome, it was to raise money for Yawp's fifth year program, and there was such a great collection of artists there, from kids currently involved in Yawp's program, people who had been through the Yawp program themselves, and other artists in the area. It was such a blessing to be part of such a great group of artists.

Our piece consisted of sarwat and imi reading a collection of pieces they had written before, during, and after a recent trip they took to Bangladesh, that they described as the "bizarre joys and surreal challenges of being muslim, deshi, queer, and deeply engaged in family during muslim holidays, blockades, violent protest, and postponed elections." this is the second time I've collaborated with sarwat, and the first with imi. sarwat is such a great writer, her poetry is deeply affecting, and beautifully written, and imi's writing is powerful, and flows through details and feelings like water. I played sitar along with their readings in Raag Khamaaj and Raag Kirwani.

Photos by Angela Steele

I never understood why people use TinyURL until I tried it. Say you want to e-mail a link to a buddy, and it's really, really long. Like http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=area+51&ie=UTF8&ll=37.243632,-115.811434&spn=0.002046,0.003782&t=k&z=18&iwloc=addr&om=1. You can go to TinyURL.com, copy and paste the long URL into the textbox, and it'll generate a URL that looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/266z5t. A lot shorter, and it points to the same place. Sweet!

A new website has popped up recently that does very much the same thing, but is a little easier to use, URLtea.com. If you go the site and create a shortened URL out of the URL above, it'll create a similarly short url: http://urltea.com/p4i. But with URLtea, you can add a question mark, followed by any text you want to the URL, to let users know a little better what the link is for. So if I wanted, I could send my buddy a link that looks like this: http://urltea.com/p4i?area-51, and it'll still come up. If you try to do this with TinyURL you'll get a 404 error for some reason. Also, they've created a fancy little bookmarklet that you can add to the bookmarks tab of your browser. Using that, if you're looking at a page you want to create a shortened URL for, you don't have to actually open up URLtea.com in a separate window or tab, and copy and paste your URL into the form. While you're looking at the page, just click on the bookmark in your bookmarks tab, and it'll be the same as submitting the URLtea form with your URL. It'll come back with a page with your shortened URL already on it.

But the thing I like most about URLtea, is you don't have to highlight the short URL and copy it to your clipboard. After you create the shortened url, it assumes you're going to be pasting the URL in some other application, and it copies the url to your clipboard for you! That's sweeeeeeet!