My World Is Changing

I've been hearing about Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods for a while now, and I finally got around to buying it this summer when we were in Arkansas. But it wasn't until I committed to go to a book discussion about it for work that i finally got around to reading it. I cracked the book yesterday and I'm almost finished - unheard of for me and non-fiction, which usually takes me weeks to finish - and now I can't stop talking about it. This book broke something open in me, and now I'm so emotional about it, I'm a mess, which is sort of a problem since I have to speak about it rationally tomorrow. Anyway to organize my thoughts, this is why I like it:

1. Louv could have gone a completely different way with the tone of this book, when I first started reading, I immediately bristled wondering if I was going to feel like a miserable parent for not taking Nora backwoods camping at the age of two. But he didn't. Yes, he clearly does stuff like this with his kids, but really what he's advocating is for parents to ensure that kids get out of the house and into a natural setting everyday. This could mean trips to the park, but it can also mean growing a seed in a dixie cup or watching the birds land on the railing. In one of the best passages of the book, Louv reassures us that making the reconnection is possible, that it doesn't have to be a giant task, and he gives us permission to have fun and to learn things too:

" But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."

2. He makes a really strong case for our need for Nature for a. mental health b. cognitive learning c. physical health d. the creative process. Our disconnect from nature is really messing us up on all four of these fronts and ruining the earth for everything else on top of it. Really that's it in a nutshell, but this book is so much more.

3. This book should be required reading for parents, educators and policy makers for Chapter 8 - the section on ADHD and the benefits of being in nature to combat it- alone. If you don't read any other part of this book, read that chapter, it is incredibly powerful.

4. He puts the responsibility for making our re-connection to nature on a multiple shoulders (well actually everyone) but he doesn't hang parents or teachers out to dry by saying its all their fault or that they are the ones who can fix this. He takes on universities, environmental groups, government, corporations,educators, parents and everyday folks and gives extremely sound advice about how to make this work. i.e.: this book doesn't just tell you there's this huge society wide problem that is destroying us, but it also gives ideas on how to fix it and points to places where folks are doing it right. Louv also cites lots of research to back up his claims but he also tells us where no one is doing any research, or not enough research, or the research is faulty to support his arguments to encourage more work to be done.

5. This book is readable. It doesn't overwhelm you with statistics (although there are plenty), it doesn't feel like you are being lectured, it's well set up and most of all it is extremely interesting, not just for parents and not just for educators and not just for green folks (although I am all three of those).

So, please check the book out. You can borrow it from me or buy your own copy or go to the library. Whatever it takes. If you want the readers condensed version check out the link to the Orion magazine article he wrote (it's where you will go if you click on his name above). Maybe you won't have the epiphany-revealing, earth-shattering, emotional reaction to it that I have, but maybe you'll like it anyway and maybe it will convince you to go take a walk in the woods. I hope so.

Wish I Were There

This past weekend, we missed what looks to have been a great party down on Cherokee for Cinco De Mayo. I don't want to steal these fabulous photos, but please go take a look. You can read more about this wonderfully wacky neighborhood and see more photos here. Cherokee Street is a bit an odd place for St. Louis, but also a miniature of some of the forces that move about St. Louis. It's the epicenter of the city's growing Hispanic population (although there are Hispanic areas in the county and the city has several other immigrant populations that are larger), there's a thriving arts community that lives here too with some folks who are a bit outside the political mainstream (anarchist collective bakery anyone?), there's a bunch of just everyday folks on the lower end of the socio-economic scale who may or may not be pushed out as this neighborhood gentrifies, and there's also a bastion of more politically connected shopkeepers hunkered down on the eastern end of the street called antiques row who aren't quite so sure about the folks just west of them. Some of the blog posts talk about the tensions, and it really shows just how segmented and neighborhood idenfitied our city can be.

Inauguration Day

This morning I had a meeting at one of the adult education centers. At 11:00, we all took a break and joined one of the classes to watch the Inauguration. If I couldn't be on the mall, this was certainly the second best place. Teachers, students, tutors, staff and we gatecrashers from our meeting watched together; sometimes silently, sometimes in tears, sometimes with cheers. Yeah, there was one guy on his cell phone, and someone was doing her homework (hey we always tell them that they need to put their studying first and turn off that TV), but 95% of the class was listening and there was this feeling going around, like we were part of something. And we were: many of these students voted for their first time this year, either due to age or because no one ever gave them reason to think that their vote mattered before. I couldn't stay for the class discussion afterwords, but I've got that warm fuzzy feeling that these students, most of them labeled only as high school dropouts, gang members, single moms, or slackers, felt like they had helped elect someone who possibly saw them in those terms, but also sees them as parents, churchgoers, community members and people who don't always have a voice, but definitely have something to say, and that maybe that something is worth listening to. I've got a whole lot a hope in them, in him and in us.

Voting

For those of you who remember the 2000 elections, you will remember that this city does not do a particularly good job preparing for the presidential vote.  I have a flexible work environment, so I waited until a little bit later, around 9 am to go vote.  We recently changed polling places and my new place is at Fanning School, someplace that already leaves a bad taste in my mouth after attending a meeting there a couple of years ago and witnessing a bunch of teachers behaving very badly and spewing some of the worst hate I've ever seen toward our immigrant and refugee population.  If we decide to put Nora into this disastrous public school system, Fanning would be her middle school, and there is no way in hell I would send her there, and honestly I'm hoping we will move prior to having to make that decision, because I'm not exactly a fan of the Catholic School system either.  Going there to vote doesn't make me happy.  Today's experience didn't really make me change that opinion either.   

When I got to the school, there wasn't a lot of parking, which really I took as a good sign.  I'm enthused about this election, much more so than 2004, and I'm happy people are turning out to vote.  Then I got inside - just inside the doors to the gym (where we vote) there was a long line snaking halfway back up the side of the gym and then all they way back down the length of the gym.  It was a lot of people.  My first thought was, wow.  I have never seen this many people standing in line to vote.  My second thought was, I wonder if it would be better to come back in about an hour.  I stood there for a few minutes, and while there were lots of poll workers standing around no one approached me.  Finally I asked one where the end of the line was - I couldn't really get in the doors and see.  She asks to see my election card (not everyone brings these to the polls - I just usually do).  She then says " Oh hon, you don't have to wait in this line"  I don't?  "This is for the special election" Special election? "You go to that table over there - the one with the 15 A on it".  I can barely see the table, I cut through the lines of people in front of me and amazingly there is no one in line at the THREE tables beyond lines.  She takes my card, she doesn't ask to see any ID or the utility bill I've brought with me to verify my address, I sign in, initial my address and the election reps from the two parties initial my signature.  She asks if I want paper or plastic.  I say I'll take whichever is faster.  Amazingly, there are both available right now.  I look at her, very surprised I ask:  "Why are all those people in line?"  She also tells me it's a "special election".  I vote and on my way out, one of the voter advocacy representatives asks me how it went - I said it was fine for me, but that I was concerned that having the big long line for the special election right at the door when you come in might make some voters think that they have to stand in it and decide not to vote.  She sort of shrugs and mumbles something.  I get on the phone to call Jason to warn him about it and since I'm on my way to work and he's off, I'll let him make a more strenuous complaint.  At the very least they should have some poll workers who are standing in front of the doors letting folks know that they may not have to stand in line and start asking for precinct numbers right away.  But part of me wonders what this special election is and how it can be that different from the other elections - I'm guessing that it is probably and alderman recall (there were several petition drives last spring about this) that affects one of the 3-4 precincts that votes here only.  They have to have separate ballots for the different precincts anyway (there are several house districts) so it can't just be a different ballot.  I doubt that there are that many more people turning out in that particular precinct - it's the presidential that's turning folks out, not some aldermanic recall.  Why is that precinct something special, what is really going on?  

But if I thought this was crazy, I was flabbergasted when I came into work and talked to our office manager.  She told me that her husband had been standing in line since 5:30 this morning and he called her at 10 to let her know that he had just voted.  She has had hip surgery and uses a cane so she walked up to the front of the line and asked if she could vote, and they let her (thankfully!), but as she pointed out - there were other people with disabilities who were still waiting in line, and no one went around and told them that they could vote immediately.    This is in the county, and obviously it was a district where they were not prepared for the voter turn out.  But in both of these situations, I'm wondering what's going to happen at 4:30 today, when folks are trying to get off work to go pick up kids and go vote - it's going to be impossible.  Democratic party is saying that if you get in line by 7pm your vote will be counted, but given that there was a lawsuit about this very thing 8 years ago and this turnout is supposed to be even bigger, I wonder if this will be true?  How many people are not going to be able to vote today because they can't stand in line for hours (some folks have to go pick up kids from school/daycare, some folks have to be at work - the three hour dispensation that most folks don't even know that we are allowed, won't help someone who has to stand 4 1/2 hours in line to vote!  How many people are going to see the lines and say, I'm not going to bother, my vote doesn't matter anyway?  How many people believe, like almost everyone at my co-workers' polling place that using an electronic machine means that their vote won't count, that it will be counted for the opposite party?  

As I drove in to work, Diane Rheim had callers call in about their experiences voting today.  Once caller summed it up for me completely - the gist of what he said was that in a country that holds itself up as a model of democracy, if we truly believe that we are the "great nation" that we hype ourselves up to be, why is there so much trouble registering to vote?  Why do so many people believe that our vote can be stolen from us and why isn't our voting system the cleanest, most efficient, best example ever.  We should be that - we have the technology, we have the money, we just don't have the will. 

ACORN

As most of you know, Jason and I worked for ACORN for several years back in the 90's. It was a chaotic experience that had its ups and downs. Some of you have been wondering what we think about all the allegations about ACORN from the McCain campaign. In short, we are appalled. We both worked voter registration at various times during our employment and can assure you we never saw ACORN promoting Voter Registration Fraud (something quite different from Voter Fraud, which has more to do with getting false people to vote or to vote twice). In Arkansas, as in many states, you are required to turn in every single voter registration card, even if you think it might be a fake registration. Sometimes people who you hire for campaigns like this are more interested in getting paid than in registering people to vote, so they fill out forms falsely. Those folks were fired, when they were discovered. Sometimes, people think it's funny to give blatantly false names on the card, and some people wanted to disrupt the process, so they did this on purpose. In any case, where we could identify forms that looked suspicious, we would set them aside and turn them in with a note to the county that we thought that they were false. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone knows the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys, so I'm sure there were some that got past us. It was not in our interest to register non-existent people - the purpose was to register real people, to encourage them to become involved in our civic process and to turn them out on election day - which is what the McCain campaign is really worried about it. The rich and elite in this country have benefited from low voter turn-out and suppressed civic engagement. If we really wanted these things and if they were really concerned about false registrations, they would make registration mandatory and automatic for citizens like many other countries do. Here's a nice video done by ACORN to set the record straight, it's only a few minutes long so check it out:



BTW, I'm proud to say that because of ACORN training, myself and several other women have been working over the past year to promote civic engagement in adult ed classrooms in the metro area - and we registered some folks to vote too. We've passed the deadline for registration in this state, but if you are registered, please make sure to go and vote. It's important.

Super Tuesday

Usually I go into the voting booth with a decision made. Today I went into the booth with a decision made. I had made up my mind to vote my heart's choice, since I knew that I would be compromising in the general. Mike Gravel was more in tune with my beliefs and where I stood on issues of immigration, terrorism, choice, third party politics, and well just about everything. And then I balked when I saw the names on the electronic screen. To have the opportunity to vote for a women on a presidential ballot was more emotional than I ever suspected. I caved. Happy Valentines Day, Hillary.

Obamania

While I still haven't decided who I'm voting for on Tuesday, Nora appears to have Obamania. Here she is rocking out during his victory speech in South Carolina. Yes, that's Dad on the castanets.